As the Guard Eaters dropped from the ceiling, Astrid went for another swing on the Hatchery. Unfortunately, her strike was not able to land. One of the monsters suddenly shot out part of its carapace and slammed the Huskcarver on the chest. It all happened in the blink of an eye. She started her swing and suddenly was launched backwards, landing close to the opposite wall of this room. The only reason why Astrid was not even more injured was that she was far away. This forced the Eater to get close to the limit of its range.
That was not just a suspicion but something I saw happen with my own eyes. Just as the piece of carapace started to approach Astrid, the tentacles attached to it seemed to stretch a bit more and slow down. There were even a few drops of that milky white blood that came out of it before the Huskcarver was struck. If any of us had any doubts, this proved that the Eater guards were here to protect the nest no matter the cost. We needed to finish them off first before dealing with this giant pulsating trunk.
The second Guard Eater quickly moved in my direction. Without waiting to allow something else to happen, I triggered {Clash Of Elements} and pushed my staff towards the middle of its shell. It looked more fragile there. It was likely there were gaps that would allow my attack to go through. If I could hit an eye, maybe that would be enough to give us some leeway in the fight that was to come. Unfortunately, my strike was not fast enough.
The Guard Eater quickly shifted the pieces of carapace with its tentacles and put them between us, causing my attack to hit the outer shell. Because I used fire and water, the quickest combo I had, a large amount of steam spread out from the point of impact. It left behind a slight scorch mark on the monster's carapace. If this were any other creature, I would consider it a small victory. After all, that scorch proved that they could be injured. But for an Eater, I was not willing to call it that. It was a mark that could be recovered quite easily if they were using {Body Regeneration}.
Michael did not waste his time. I saw him rush away from me and started firing some arrows. He tried to take advantage of the exposed body of the Eater. But those creatures could move their carapaces at staggering speed. The projectiles were cruising through the air when five of the twenty legs shifted to intercept all the arrows about to make contact.
On the other side, I saw Astrid starting to run away from the monster as it used its carapace to deliver a flurry of punches on the Huskcarver. She tried approaching the walls and making the Eater slam against the hard metal shell of the nest. She likely hoped that it would either injure itself or stop attacking. Yet, the creature slammed against the metal wall, cracking it with each punch, and continued moving as if it did not care about all the damage it was doing. I could somehow tell that this particular attack was the behavior of a skill. It was maybe one that once it started, they could not stop until it was over.
I heard the noise approaching and quickly ducked under a piece of the carapace that was flung at me like a blade. It was a very dull and thick blade, but a blade nonetheless. Tumbling to the side, I tried to get some distance between the Guard Eater and me, but the creature did not allow that.
It continued to press forward, refusing to let me escape its range. Just as it tried to do with Astrid, the creature hopped back using the various tentacles that were attached to it and started pummeling the air in front of me. Each punch was powerful enough to hear the wind crack when the tentacles retreated. It was pretty obvious that if I was to get hit by that, there would be very little of me left.
At the very least, when it was doing that, it could not move as quickly as it did before. This gave me a good chance to put some distance between us. I pointed at the Guard Eater that was chasing after me. It continued its hammer attack without any indication that it was going to stop.
Since those two attacks were so powerful, maybe we could use them to make the Eaters attack each other. I held onto my idea and started to guide the Eater in my direction. Astrid did the same, always making sure to force the beast to focus on her instead of going after Michael, Riley, or Rex.
They were also attacking, trying to land a hit past the carapaces to reach the actual torso. Nothing seemed to work. Rex's stone spears and Michael's arrows were all blocked. Those beasts were able to quickly redirect a couple of the tentacles in order to deflect the incoming projectiles. The only success we had came from Riley's attempts at slowing them down. The silk around its legs was proving to be a hindrance, even if a small one. They at least could hinder them enough to allow us to get away.
The Huskcarver was not as nimble as I was. Once the two Guard Eaters were finally close enough, Astrid and I moved past each other, forcing the two creatures into each other's range. As we were expecting, they did not stop pummeling and continued attacking even their own brethren. Unlike what we expected, the carapaces were almost synchronized.
They would slam into each other with a loud crack that created sparks, illuminating the entire cave. The shockwave created by the continuous strikes was reverberating in the nest, causing my head to start to hurt. It was not even because of the noise. It was more the air pressure created by those tiny explosions.
As the two Guard Eaters continued to follow us, suddenly I saw a large piece of rock flying towards the Hatchery in the center of the room. Just as that happened, the two Eaters stopped and rushed to block the projectile. Rex's attack did not land, but it made the two Eaters change their targets. They were now going after the small Rodenti.
I rushed to pick up Rex. He might have a new stone foot that allowed him to move properly, but I was not super confident he would be able to escape those creatures. I had no intention of letting my friend become a paste on the ground of this nest.
While I was carrying Rex on my shoulder, Astrid went back to attack the Hatchery. Just as she was about to swing her axe, the two Guard Eaters shifted their attention and went after her. Both of them sent a tentacle holding a piece of carapace flying off. Once more, I saw that stretch, which broke some of their skin and let droplets of Eater blood fall to the ground.
At the same time, I saw Michael firing an arrow at one of the guards in hopes of hitting it. He was not able to hit the eye just yet, but this time the projectile got much closer. It seemed like the main job of those guards was to truly protect the nest, and they would drop everything in order to do so.
With that knowledge in hand, I tried something a bit different. "Rex, keep firing at the Hatchery!" I shouted. "Astrid, when the two guards are close to me, hit the trunk again!"
Before I could give the last part of the command, Riley stepped in. "Michael and I will keep firing at the Guard while you two keep them busy." The Witch turned to the other person responsible for the long range attacks and added, "Try to time it for when they are not using the carapaces to block their bodies."
"Got it!" Michael shouted.
He moved away from us, aiming at the Guard Eaters. The monsters were starting to approach Astrid now that she had attempted to attack the Hatchery. Only when it was clear that she would be in trouble did I tell Rex to fire the next spell. Another rock was lifted from the ground and tossed in the direction of the pillar at the center of this arena. This made the two Guard Eaters split off and try to block the large projectile.
While it seemed that only one of them was needed to stop Astrid, when Rex threw the rocks, both would jump in to stop it. Maybe it was just the size of it and they were worried about the debris, or maybe there was something else going on. One way or another, we were going to take advantage of that as much as possible.
Once the two Eaters were getting close to Rex and me again, Astrid jumped towards the Hatchery and swung her axe at the large glowing part that had the surrounding tentacles. The Eaters shifted again, this time both moved away from me and Rex. They threw most of their carapaces towards the Huskcarver.
Astrid was ready and jumped away before she was struck by them. At the same time, both Riley and Michael fired at the guards' exposed torsos. While the initial flurry did not seem to hit them, Riley fired a spell that was a minor version of the {Thousand-Loom Dominion} skill. That single attack created an explosion of silk around the torso of the Guard Eater. It wrapped around the eyes and started to squish them.
At the same time, one of the projectiles fired by Michael hit the torso. It proved to be much weaker than any of us were expecting. The arrow pierced the body of the Guard Eater, becoming embedded about halfway through. A large splattering of blood came out of the guard, but it still focused on Astrid. It continued trying to stop the Huskcarver, who was now running around the pillar to attack.
Rex sent off another large boulder and jumped away from my back. "Go fight. Better if Cass helps kill."
I was worried about my companion, but I had to admit that running around was not really my style. Just accepting the suggestion, I ran past the Eater that was going towards Rex. Before I could reach the Hatchery in the center of the room, Astrid went for another swing. This time she was carrying particles on her Axe as she triggered {Crawling Frost} to damage the central piece of this nest even more. The Guard Eaters noticed what was going on and tried to stop her, but they did not move fast enough.
This allowed one of us to land a proper blow on the Hatchery for the first time. The ice spiders started to crawl on top of the trunk, slowly freezing it. In a frenzy, the Guard Eaters scrambled to try to remove the ice spiders. They were being very careful not to hit the central pillar, but at the same time, they used their carapaces to push away the tiny spiders created by Astrid's skill.
Taking advantage of the situation, I jumped and activated {Clash Of Nature} one more time, aiming at the torso of one of those creatures. I scraped my staff on some of the ice that managed to sneak by them and use it in combination with water. It was an explosion that had a piercing ability. There was a loud blast as the ice and water on my staff combined, creating large shards of ice directly on the torso of one of those Guard Eaters.
It was the one that was already damaged by Michael and Riley. The added force of my attack was enough to finally destroy it. The entire torso popped like a balloon, and the rest of its body fell limp on the ground. A second later the particles rushed towards us.
I turned to the remaining Guard Eater, but I did not have enough Energy to use the attack. If I did, I would not have enough to try to take the memories from the Hatchery. However, for the first time, our target joined the fight. Instead of attacking us, we saw a pulse of Energy flashing across the entire room. Instead of going out, it was going towards the main pillar.
That one hole surrounded by tentacles started to glow. It reached in with its own tentacles and pulled out a somewhat large blob of black metal. This metal quickly shifted and sprouted spider-like legs. It got up, revealing rows of tentacles on top of its body. The legs were not all the right size, and each of them seemed to be different from each other. The tentacles also were struggling to move, with only one of them being properly pointed upwards. It looked like an Eater that was born premature.
The System quickly told me what exactly I was looking at
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Malformed Eater - Tier 1.
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I barely had enough time to process the fact that this Hatchery could create Tier 1 Eaters when the tentacles reached inside it again and pulled out another blob. While we had lost one of its guards, it seemed like the Hatchery was more than capable of creating an endless supply of Eaters to stop us from attacking it. We needed to finish this quickly before we were overwhelmed by the numbers.