Museum Core Chapter 21: Wyrm

The first thing to do had been to have all his creatures get into positions that couldn’t be seen from the door to ensure the wyrm couldn’t just snipe everyone without even going inside.

And the second would have been to start swapping out existing creatures, but in the end, he didn’t have the time, as the creature entered and thereby shut down his ability to control his dungeon.

He really needed to grow his domain to the point where he could manipulate it even with visitors, but Elias didn’t know just when that was. He might have had an absurd amount of knowledge about basically everything, but a lot of that was second-hand, especially when Dungeons were involved. After all, Elias had been human before, not a Dungeon in his own right.

He’d talked to a few sapient Dungeons, but the specifics had apparently never cropped up. Understandable, given that it wasn’t a problem for cores at the rank required for sapience, but annoying.

The Landwyrm roared as it slither-walked into the entrance hall, glaring around the room after its jaws had slammed shut. Almost as if it had expected someone to rise to the challenge.

None of Thomas’ creatures were stupid enough to do that, though.

A bolt of acid splattered onto the middle of the floor. Still no reaction.

The Landwyrm growled in apparent frustration. Aw, now it was frustrated. And hopefully, it’d stay that way for a while. Enough time to refine some more plans. Hopefully.

“Elias, how the hell is that thing so strong? It took out two wyverns like it was nothing!” Thomas asked, hoping to sound as calmly as he wanted to seem.

“It’s related to dragons and it’s at the peak of E-Rank. The power you can gain as you advance through E-Rank is double what you can gain in F-Rank, and things only get crazier from there,” the fairy shrugged. “Heritage and species won’t matter as much past D-Rank, you gain so much power at that point that what you started as doesn’t matter as much.”

“… But right now, it’s still op as fuck,” Thomas added.

Although it did make sense. Before supernatural enhancements, it all came down to natural, physiology-based, abilities. A cat was stronger than a mouse, a dog beat a cat, and a tiger or lion handily obliterated any dog ever born.

As creatures advanced through F-Rank, they’d receive an influx of power that enhanced every aspect of their being, but there’d be a limit before they hit the end of that rank and had to find a way to evolve, as well as get a suitable power. Elias had once mentioned that getting past those wasn’t normally as easy as just deciding what power to use.

But if this thing not only had a strong baseline physique but also the entirety of E-Rank’s potential, it would beat out the early E-Rank Alpha Rippers and mid-E-Rank wyverns by a not insignificant margin.

Another bolt of acid lanced through the room, this time one that melted a small hole in the far wall.

If this had been a cartoon, this was the part where the cricket could be heard. Oh, maybe Thomas should get some just for a little psychological warfare. Something to make noise with when someone did something stupid or idiotic.

… Or maybe that was just juvenile. Then again, “juvenile” was just a social convention, and it wasn’t like anyone would be able to judge whether or not he was acting “appropriate for his age”. He was a rock.

Either way, the more acid the wyrm wasted to bait out his creatures, the better.

It unleashed three more acid bolts before stopping and just staring around.

Against ordinary animals, having a dragon-thing appear and start spitting acid would have provoked either a stampede of fleeing creatures or a fight response to reassert dominance. Or maybe protect one’s offspring, not that that was a concern with Dungeon-spawned creatures.

But Thomas had told his creatures to stay put, which made all attempts an utter waste of acid.

If Thomas had been in the wyrm’s place, he might have tried to cover the floor in acid to prevent smaller and weaker creatures from closing in, assuming the creature was actually resistant to its own acid, but overall, what was it waiting for? Did it know how it was interfering with his abilities, was it waiting for him to lose his patience and attack?

If this would be a game of patience, Thomas wasn’t sure he’d win.

Or perhaps, it was another former human?

“Could you dodge an acid bolt if you got close enough to talk to it?” he asked Elias, and the fairy nodded vigorously.

“Do you want me to lure it in?”

Thomas was not a fan of Elias’ eager, bloodthirsty, even, tone.

“No, I want you to pretend it’s a former human and try to reason with it. If it attacks, it’s either not a human, or at least someone too violent for me to feel bad about killing.”

He’d probably feel bad either way, but he’d feel less bad if the other guy was eminently unreasonable.

“Hey there, Mr. Landwyr- … whoa!”

Elias didn’t even get the first sentence out before he was forced to dodge, but that didn’t stop him from delivering the entirety of his little speech.

“So, are you human? Because if you are, you’re either going to leave this place, or you’re going to die, because there are a lot of monsters in here. I mean, that’s your choice, but personally, I’d prefer to live. So … would you fucking stop that in the name of all things celestial!”

Still muttering cusswords under his breath, Elias retreated back to the core. He’d dodged almost a dozen acid bolts during his speech and was apparently not into dodging deadly projectiles.

But even if it hadn’t really changed the overall situation of “dungeon vs dragon’s red-headed stepchild”, but after a long moment, the Landwyrm began to move.

Its movements were strange to watch, some odd combination of a snake’s slithering, a lizard’s walking, and a centipede’s skittering, but it could get up to a decent speed if it wanted.

With a roar so loud that if Thomas hadn’t been aware of its source, he’d have assumed a dragon had snuck in, the giant sloth launched itself from the mezzanine.

It wouldn’t survive, hell, it was so heavy that it would barely survive the impact with the ground, but the Landwyrm would hardly enjoy the result either way.

The snake dragon was flattened in an almost cartoonish fashion when the four-ton sloth landed on it, and then, it had the supreme pleasure of having claws jabbed in its armpits.

A giant sloth, or megatherium if you wanted to get scientific about it, had evolved its claws to pull down tree branches, not fight, but they were still pointy and had a lot of muscle behind them.

And Thomas had ordered it to go for what had to be a weak point.

The thing about defense powers, and powers in general, was that there were limits. The Landwyrm’s insides were apparently permanently elastic, which was one hell of a boon, but its scales were both tough and unaffected.

Having that power also be toggleable would likely blow the limits of what was ultimately a low-rank power. Thomas certainly hadn’t seen any hit of the power having extra powers.

From there, he could easily deduce that certain points that were moved a lot, like “armpits”, the hinge of the jaw, etc., couldn’t be as heavily armored as the rest.

The Landwyrm roared in surprise and pain, then twisted and unleashed more acid straight into the sloth’s face. Then, taking advantage of the creature’s blindness, went for the throat.

Thomas sighed. The sloth might have been stupendously powerful for a regular, unranked, creature, but the Landwyrm had likely been its equal in terms of pure physicality before it had climbed two entire ranks worth of magical power.

While the Landwyrm drew first blood, the rest of the Dungeon creatures went in.

Elephants or Giant Sloths weren’t exactly stealthy, so the invading monster heard them coming, but it was too late and by the time it turned, the elephant had already headbutted it. Which was then followed up with it being grabbed by the trunk and having tusks pressed into its chest.

The elephant died soon after, having put its head within easy striking range, yet that had also blocked the wyrm’s line of sight. A window of opportunity which was then exploited by the rest of the creatures.

Of course, the biggest contributors were the two hippos that chomped down on the spots the first sloth had injured while countless big cats tried to dig out scales and rip into the flesh below.

Once the elephant fell, the Landwyrm spun and chomped down on each hippo’s skull in turn before it started to hunt down the cats.

Yet there were plenty of creatures in play even smaller than the comparatively tiny felids.

Thomas really wished Teddy and Elias could have gotten him the Fer de Lance before this mess happened, but he’d already had the Boomslang in play.

Bright emerald snakes were eminently visible against brown and beige marble, but being beneath an enemy’s notice was still one hell of a camouflage method.

There were a few snakes that couldn’t go for an opening so Thomas had them experimentally try to get through the scales, but most had at least some viable targets to go for.

Find opening, lunge forward, chomp down, inject all the venom you have, do whatever.

Those were the orders Thomas had given, and that was what they did.

It wasn’t doing anything yet, it hadn’t spread very far yet and those wounds were fresh, they’d breed profusely venom or no venom, but it would get nasty eventually.

In fact, if he was really lucky, he might even be able to cause some serious internal bleeding. That was what a lot of hemotoxins eventually did, exaggerate minor and inconsequential tissue damage that occurred on a daily basis into an unstoppable crimson flood of exsanguination.

And with all the impacts the creature was suffering, there’d be a lot more than just   “minor and inconsequential” damage happening.

The final blow struck by the entrance hall was the last two giant sloths trying to crush the Landwyrm’s skull. It didn’t do anything obvious, but if the rubber physiology was anything less than utterly perfect, it would cause minor bleeds that would become deadly or at the very least, incapacitating, brain hemorrhages.

Or so he hoped.

If everything went well.

Because that fucking dragon might be already covered in blood, but it was the “couldn’t have the action hero look like he just got out of the shower” kind of mess, not the kind of thing that indicated that his creatures had done fatal damage.

And this fucker was just E-Rank. How much stronger could a monster get at D-Rank? Hell, what about A- or even S-Rank? Shrug off nukes and use the radiation like a tanning bed?

Wasn’t the power gain exponential, though? People always underestimated exponential increases, so maybe S-Rankers could crush planets … or stars?

He’d asked Elias, but the fairy had been oddly vague about it. It hadn’t even seemed deliberate, just hard to explain. Or maybe Elias had just had trouble putting it into words.

Either way, magical creatures were fucking monsters, in more than one sense of the word.

All Thomas could do now was hope his own monsters could win the fight.

The wyrm began to advance deeper into the Dungeon, only to freeze, whirl around, and go after all surviving snakes. Apparently, that fucker was more than a little upset about being bitten.

Was being petty a point in favor of that wyrm being a former human, or one against?

Catching sight of yet another giant sloth, a creature whose comrades had already inflicted significant damage, the invader somewhat lost it, unleashing its acid in a stream that blasted out of its mouth with more power than a firehose could muster, drenching the beast. The beam cut out well before the sloth was properly dead.

If Thomas was lucky, the wyrm had finally blown through its full acid capacity.

Either way, it had taken out the final giant sloth in the dungeon.

Oh well, just a champion sabertooth tiger, three E-Rank monsters, and a metric crapton of Wolverines left.

Aaaannd … there was the woolly rhino.

Thomas had had it take position behind the giant sloth and start gathering momentum.

So when the giant sloth dropped, the Landwyrm was immediately met with a horn to the chest.

The thing about woolly rhinos was that, well, their horns were huge, though the one-meter sword this particular specimen had was on the long end for the species.

For a long moment, the wyrm’s scales held, its chest bowing inwards in a decidedly unnatural way … and then, the Landwyrm began to dodge.

The horn had been pressing on a specific scale and pushing it inwards, but when the wyrm shifted, the horn slipped, sliding to the side, under another scale, and deep into the flesh of the wyrm itself.

With a three-ton extinct monster moving at a high enough speed to trigger the speed cameras in parts of the city behind it, the blade of bone ripped along the side of the Landwyrm’s body.

It would have been better if it hadn’t already been dodging, it would have likely been halfway decapitated, but Thomas was honestly rather fine with that outcome.

He still had creatures, and the monster was coming up on the newly-renamed gallery of death.

Darkness and shadow, with every single nook and cranny hiding either a wolverine or boomslang.

If the wyrm had still had any acid, it could have hosed the gallery with corrosive liquid, cleaning out all the creatures within. But it didn’t do that, so it was probably out. Or at the very least, saving the last dregs for the “boss fight”.

Snakes lunged out of hiding places, F-Rank wolverines that had been clinging to the ceiling dropped down, and everything he had in that room began to rip into the monster.

The end result was somewhat middling, being largely limited to more venom being pumped into the wyrm’s body, but there was one particularly brave wolverine that managed to latch onto one of the wyrm’s eyeballs.

It died immediately as the larger monster immediately bashed its head against the nearest wall, but even with the wolverine dying almost immediately, Thomas could see that the attacked eyeball was bloodshot and … were those tears, or was it leaking?

Gross, but a good sign overall.

By the time the wyrm reached the end of the corridor, it was still bleeding from every injury, no matter how minor the scratches were. Would it have made it to the end of the dungeon even without monsters in the way?

Thomas gave the arsinoitherium on the mezzanine a mental nudge and it began to charge. If he could wedge the wyrm in place, that would be the checkmate.

Unfortunately, the wyrm had apparently grown wise to what the sound of pounding footsteps meant and jerked its head back, causing the arsinoitherium to go straight past and hammer into the wall at the bottom of the stairs. The wyrm killed it with a swift bite and then began to attack the wall.

“Why do we even have the mezzanine if everything just bashes its way through the wall?” Thomas groaned. He’d have to thicken that wall and widen the mezzanine to ensure that powerful invaders actually went that way. And he should probably design something to take advantage of creatures being focused on bashing through rocks.

Of course, the instant the wyrm’s head poked through, it was met with a salvo of hardened spikes from the rippers in there.

The wyrm growled … and studiously ignored the attack, slithering through the hole and running straight into Cheshire’s boss room.

“That’s probably good news, if it’s running, it has to be scared. Or maybe …” Elias began to assure him, only to trail off. “Nevermind, I take it all back, this is excellent news.”

Thomas just remembered a little factoid he’d received alongside the boomslang pattern.

Snakes and smooth surfaces did not mix well. Smooth marble wasn’t good for moving across, but that was still rough enough for both the wyrm and the boomslang to move across.

Cheshire’s boss room, on the other hand, was made of the smoothest stone that the laws of physics allowed to exist, and made slick as fuck by a coating of water to boot.

The sabertooth tiger had claws custom-designed to dig into the ground and allow her to move fairly freely in this place.

The wyrm … didn’t. And the ground was so heavily reinforced that its claws would not be able to dig in easily. Or at all, really, unless you counted shallow scratches.

Cheshire’s claws dug into the marble and she launched herself across the floor like a cannonball, sliding atop the slick rock, only to briefly extend a single claw and hook it into the ground, using it as a fulcrum to swing herself around until she was parallel with the wyrm, extending the claws on the opposite end to rake them down the invader’s side with her momentum.

The wyrm tried to respond, of course, but once again, it flopped around with all the grace of a fish on land while Cheshire looked like an Olympic figure skater by comparison.

She yanked herself out of a bite’s range, then spun around again while projecting her claws outwards and raking them across the wyrm’s more intact eye, which promptly exploded into a cloud of blood and ick.

Another lunge saw the wyrm extend to its full length but barely shift its position more than a meter, which was the perfect opening for Cheshire to pounce on it, land a few bites. And when the Landwyrm retaliated, the big cat went spinning away while unleashing a few more magically elongated claws with a gentle flick of the wrist.

“Hack and slash and carve that damn snake to ribbons!” Thomas cheered. Individual strikes weren’t doing too much damage due to Cheshire’s hit-and-run tactics, but she’d already landed almost a dozen blows without taking any damage in return.

Maybe … another dozen or so strikes should be enough.

And now it was a waiting game … nevermind. The wyrm simply collapsed without any kind of obvious cause, so it had to have been blood loss, accumulated internal damage, or something along those lines.

Thomas sighed in relief as energy flooded him and any patterns involved in slaying the monster. Finally done.

“Elia, could you tell the humans it’s safe?” he asked, only to hastily add. “But keep them down there until I’ve cleaned up, I don’t want Lea to see the …”

“Bloodbath?” Elias ”helpfully” suggested.

It was an accurate way to describe matters, though. The entire floor from the entrance to the core room was one giant blood trail, with more crimson liquid being splattered about the place in the entrance hall and boss room.

“Use another word around her,” Thomas sighed.

And with that done, he got to shifting around the Dungeon a little, adding a new wall to the cafe entrance. Having easy access to it from the main door was convenient for taking in refugees, but it also meant that any monster that entered had immediate access to any people taking refuge there.

But once that was done, he could let them back up and be showered in the spoils of the expedition into the guts of the building.