Even though he had been stomping his foot, there was simply too much viscera around. His leg skidded forward as he tumbled back slightly. His head swung through the air, but it didn’t crash into the ground. The large seal he had grown, prevented him from hitting the ground directly. The wood pressed into the ground, as insects charged into him. They clawed wildly. Scratching at his scales and wood. They couldn’t do much, but there were so many attacking him that he couldn’t see anything but carapace.

His domain let him see how the insects were piling on him. They squeezed into one another trying desperately to overwhelm him. It didn’t work. Mash swung his arms together. They had managed to cut his wood in some places, but they didn’t get all the way through it. The wooden blades swept threw the pile of insects. He bisected many of them, but they didn’t stop their flailing. Even the disconnected parts of their bodies continued to flail about. A stray limb one of the hundreds managed to strike one of the few unprotected places on his body. A claw dug into one of his eyes. He felt liquid run down his cheek, and then the insect pulled. Pain spread from the eye, lancing through the rest of his face.

His eye was torn out, and Mash screamed. His shout was a mix of a howl and a roar. As his mouth opened, the insects started to fill it. Their limbs scratched at the inside of his mouth, and he tasted blood. His mouth was full of it, but his mind was filled with something else. Anger surged, and he forced his eyes shut. Why had even had them open? It’s not like he needed them to see. His domain was easily big enough to cover the insects around him. The anger twisted. It was arrogance or pride. It was a stupid thing, and it stuck to him. How many times would he do the same idiotic thing? Was it his form or his race? Wolves and dragons were prideful creatures. No, he couldn’t blame something like that. It was just him.

That acceptance turned his pride into fury. His mouth slammed shut. His teeth tore apart the insects’ limbs. They crunched as he bit down. The wooden blades had broken at this point, but he didn’t need them. His arms shot out and he grabbed two of the insects in his fists. In his dragon form, his hands were a little larger. They were just barely big enough for his claws to dig into the edges of their central carapace. They had a thin long segment where the majority of the limbs were connected, and his hand could almost encompass the whole thing.

Pain and anger mixed into a rage, and he tried using his chimeric reconstruction. He didn’t know if it would work, but he was acting on instinct. His skill started, and Mash felt a difference now. He no longer saw it as something magical. It was something physical. The strangest thing was the wall he felt. The skill was a contest of power. It wasn’t something like magical resistance. Not an arbitrary thing like willpower or life force either.

Ultimately it just came down to raw power, and he was far stronger than any one insect. He overwhelmed the creature. His skill activated, and the insect crumpled into his palm. Normally, the creature seemed to melt into his skin. Now, it was a little different. The insect got sucked into his hand. Its carapace cracked and crumpled like a sheet of paper. The clicking stopped at once, but other sounds filled the gap. The two insects in his hand didn’t scream, but their limbs desperately struck his scales. However, even that was quiet compared to the sound of things breaking. The insect’s shells were hard like stone, and they were loud when they broke.

The other insects seemed to sense something, and Mash felt the monsters hesitate. He didn’t though. Anger still bubbled within him, and he reached for another two insects. The insects he absorbed had completely vanished, only small bits of their carapace and few limbs had remained. There was no perfect way to describe the feeling. It wasn’t like eating. He imagined it was what plants felt when they absorbed water and light. The monsters broke down and melded into his flesh.

The other insects grew more frenzied. They were panicking. Mash didn’t know what had changed, but he could see them with their domain. Whether they were afraid or furious was hard to tell, but he saw the coming mass of insects shift. They still spread around, but now more insects were funneling towards him. They swarmed around him circling in an ever-increasing mass. Filling any gaps. He almost wondered if he could suffocate but doubted that they could stop air from flowing.

Mash felt his eye heal as the next two insects met the same fate as the previous. The gaps he made were quickly filled, but he didn’t care. He kept grabbing and destroying everything he could. He was still on his back, only propped upright by the wooden seal he had made. He used that to his advantage and grew more wood from his back. They weren’t limbs but replicas made of wood. True replicas that took with them a portion of his health. They weren’t made in his image though. Instead, he modeled them after Priscilla, albeit they were much larger than she would normally be. As they grew in size, he was pushed onto his feet.

He didn’t open his eye and had altered his body to grow scales over his ears and nose. Despite cutting off most of his senses, he didn’t really need them. His domain was more than enough, and he knew that he was facing the right way. All he would need to do was trudge forward and find the hole where these monsters were coming from. Even without sight or sound, he could feel the monsters scratching his scales. Not that he needed to too. His domain wasn’t really needed either. There were so many insects that all he needed to do was reach out. His hands always found something to grab.

More insects fell to his reconstruction skill. He probably didn’t need to use it, but it was helping with his imitations. The health he drained in making the imitations of Priscilla was recovering almost as quickly. It was an obvious combination of the two skills, but he hadn’t had the opportunity to utilize it yet. This was probably the ideal situation for it. The first two imitations of Priscilla broke off from him. They had the simple command to just eat as many as they could. Magic might work, but this was simpler and more effective. Eating the insects would make him stronger, and it might do the same for them. He didn’t just stop at two replicas either. Another pair started growing from his back.

He couldn’t see or hear, but he pushed forward. He raised his feet higher than usual and brought them down with more force too. The snow crunched, and each step left a tiny crater. More importantly, it would stop him from slipping again. He ignored the sound of other things breaking as he took another step.

Luke P.O.V

Luke had been surprised by the number of insects that had climbed out of the hole. And he grew a little worried when he realized that the outpour of monsters hadn’t slowed in the slightest. He thought of their group rather highly. They were strong for their level with classes that were made unique by their experiences. Not to mention the things that they had gained beyond their world. Despite all of that, he still wasn’t sure how they would fare against an actual army. Even weak monsters posed a problem when they came in numbers. He remembered the first mission they had been on and the rats that had almost killed some of them. That had only been several hundred rats, but there were already more insects here. The flow hadn’t even stuttered.

He slammed a golden fist against one creature’s head. It popped in gore, and it was disgusting, however, he had noticed that anything else wouldn’t kill them. Plus, they seemed to resist a lot of magic. He had wondered if general magical resistance was a thing. The guild claimed that some monsters had it, but he had kind of assumed it would just mean resistance to the most common types. Apparently, it was an indiscriminate resistance to all things that used mana. However, it didn’t do anything to stop his fists when he buffed them. Jill was similarly impaired. Unlike him though, she had to rely entirely on her weapon. It was strange, but her weapon’s effect wasn’t magical. He would ask her about it later. He just made sure to keep everyone in sight.

As a team, they were basically invincible, or close enough to it. Jill’s teleport and his remote healing were a good combo. All he needed to be keep an eye on everyone. Although the fight had shown him something else. As significant and powerful as his class might be, he was somewhat reliant on other people. The stronger his teammates were, the stronger he was. When he used his buffs on others, they improved him a little too. And he realized now what that fully meant for him. He hadn’t used his buffs on Mash, and he was significantly weaker for it. It was dumb, but he had been worried for Jill after she had used so much mana to move the snow. He knew that she would teleport away from any danger. But that wasn’t the point.

He had honestly thought that they were best when fighting together. And there was some truth to that. Both he and Jill could support almost anyone. Although this fight had made something evident. Red and Mash didn’t need their support. Luke and Jill didn’t need it, but it wasn’t the same thing. Red and Mash seemed to do nearly as well with or without help. He could see Red fighting in the distance.

Red’s entire body was blood, and the monster crashed into it constantly. That only left a trail of dead monsters, as her blood was literally diseased. It wasn’t a poison which meant it was much harder to resist. She would be especially effective against people. There were few healing skills for diseases, and they were usually pretty inefficient. His own healing abilities weren’t great for it. These insects couldn’t even do it, and she left a trail of dead in her area. Discolored bodies that he was sure would poison the lands. They would need to be burned, or maybe it would be better if some of Mash’s creations ate them. She was killing them faster than anyone else. Not to mention that she hadn’t even taken any damage. These monsters didn’t seem to have anything other than physical attacks. So long as Red kept her body malleable, these monsters wouldn’t be able to hurt her.

Even seeing her decimate insect after insect wasn’t the most impressive sight. He killed another two insects, before turning his gaze over to Mash. Well, where he was supposed to be. Luke couldn’t actually tell with the mass of writhing insects surrounding him. For some reason, most of the insects were congregating around him. If they were fighting hundreds, there was at least a thousand wriggling around Mash. If it was anyone else, he would assume that they were dead. Crushed by the weight if nothing else. But Priscilla had told him several times that Mash was fine.