Somewhere in the desert expanse, the sand starts to shift. The ground collapses in on itself, revealing the black carapace of an armoured monster.

  It rises from below, slowly moving toward a small pole protruding from a nearby dune. The creature, a two metre long scorpion, extends its chela and grips the object, extracting it from the sand. Its form resembles that of an arrow, but it lacks fletching.

  Moments later, a proper arrow collides with the arachnid’s abdomen.

  A sickening crunch accompanies the scorpion's body turning limp as green blood covers the ground below it.

  ?elare dispels the invisibility field concealing him and the other three.

  “That was easy,” he says.

  Hunter closes his eyes for a moment and releases a pulse of earth element. Once they reopen, he says, “That wasn't it, there are more of those and one seemingly even bigger.”

  Vis grins with visible excitement as he lightly punches his palm.

  “Multiple? I suppose that's why they call it a Scorpion Mother, eh?”

  Hunter finishes restringing his bow and he hands an unfletched arrow to Vis.

  “Let's do the same again. Throw that so that one of them comes to investigate. ?elare, we shouldn't waste your mana further, so I want you to observe for now.”

  The warrior places his foot behind him, leans back and snaps forward, launching the projectile with incredible speed, and it lands in a small ditch. Seconds later, another monster appears and moves to it before being annihilated in a manner identical to the first.

  “Ugh, this is too easy. Won't we get an actual fight?” Vis complains.

  For the first time in a while, Astraea speaks.

  “I expect the venom contained in their stingers will not be so easy to purge, and you are fully aware of how taxing it is to heal a severed limb.”

  Her reasoning is met with a short grumble, before they repeat the process, managing to pick off three more. After this, however, their strategy stops bearing fruit.

  “Hunter, please re-evaluate their position and number,” she says.

  The bowman nods and speaks a few seconds later.

  “I can't sense any movement. I think they realise the trap and are hiding from what they think is a predator.”

  Astraea opens her mouth to speak again, but Hunter's voice interrupts her, loud and panicked.

  “Scatter!”

  In the same instant, the sand beneath them starts to shake, throwing everyone off balance as a creature surfaces. It is a black scorpion like the others, however this one is nearly double the size. Its chelae swing for anyone nearby.

  Vis manages to grab ?elare and jump to the side while Hunter shoves Astraea, causing her to fall backward.

  Being the only one left in range, it grabs Hunter and raises him into the air, managing to free the rest of its body.

  Hunter yells with a voice strained by the powerful grip on his chest.

  “This is the mother! Kill it!”

  The Scorpion Mother’s tail bends round to inject him with venom, but Vis manages to leap on top of the monster and push against it with his greatsword, protecting him.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  As this happens, Astraea grabs the beast's carapace and grunts.

  “I cannot affect anything through the armor. I need it to be chipped, Vis.”

  The warrior is unresponsive as he focuses on protecting his ally.

  ?elare runs over to her and whispers, “I need you to heal me for a little while.”

  She nods and places a hand on his back. The blond places his palm on their enemy's carapace, and after a moment, a sizzling sound can be heard. Astraea grunts as life energy begins to flow from her body into the boy, who is now gritting his teeth.

  The Scorpion begins to hiss and it drops Hunter, who lands on the ground, taking deep breaths. The tail is no longer threatening him, so Vis jumps down and runs to the bowman, taking the time to help him up and hand him his bow, which fell beside him.

  From his free hand, ?elare releases a blast of sound waves with such intensity that the monster completely ceases movement for three more seconds. In that time, the sizzling increases in intensity until he screams.

  Astraea grimaces as she sees his hand turn red and blister, only for the skin to fall off and be regenerated tens of times per second. She does not even notice as her own hand’s skin, flesh and then bone is converted to life energy to heal him.

  Once the Scorpion is no longer stunned, it swipes at the one hurting it, knocking ?elare back. A blinding light erupts from their point of contact for but a moment until it vanishes.

  The dual-mage loses consciousness from the pain as he falls, but Astraea manages to catch him, gently laying him on the ground. Looking back, she sees that a small hole has been made by the melting of the exoskeleton.

  An arrow collides with the Scorpion Mother, but it does not penetrate its thick armour. Hunter and Vis split up, running opposite ways as the monster turns and tries to grab them.

  Astraea shouts, “I need access to its left side!”

  “That ain't easy to get you,” Vis yells back, before he slams his bracers together and summons a warhammer. He kicks off the ground with a burst of strength, launching him five metres into the air.

  Astraea sprints to the area of breached defense as Vis falls down, swinging his weapon. Sand is launched as the beast’s abdomen is forced into the ground, accompanied by a deafening crack.

  The healer takes the opportunity to thrust her hand into the flesh under the exoskeleton, rapidly draining life energy from their foe and managing to partially restore her hand.

  Vis attempts to flee a potential counterattack, but he is grabbed moments after impact. He grunts as the stinger reaches him before anyone can free him, then he is tossed aside.

  “That's not good,” Hunter murmurs before the other chela grips him and he too is injected and thrown, landing next to the warrior.

  Astraea's usual neutral expression gives way momentarily to a hint of fear as her eyes widen, looking at the two strongest fighters struggling to stand in the face of their enemy.

  The Goliath Scorpion Mother turns to her, seemingly unbothered by anything they did to it. As it scuttles towards her, she takes a deep breath, returning to form and analysing the situation.

  She's the only one left who can fix the situation. She cannot pierce its armour, she cannot maintain contact with the only open point, but she cannot save everyone without defeating the enemy. Using the single second before it arrives, she decides on her plan of action.

  She removes Novus’ reward from her pocket and places it in her mouth. Then, the arachnid grabs her. As the stinger pierces her shoulder, she bites down on the orb. It shatters, releasing an intense wave of life energy into her body, instantly neutralising the venom and regenerating her hand fully. With this, she grabs the tail and holds it in her shoulder with strength far above her body’s limit.

  The Scorpion Mother simply pumps more and more venom into its prey, not showing any reaction.

  Eventually, life energy stops being supplied to her as the orb’s reserves run dry. She switches to utilising her own stores to counteract the venom. Starting from her feet, her body starts to be slowly consumed until she has nothing below her thighs. Her boots fall to the ground.

  Astraea’s body, running so low on life energy, actively seeks out any nearby source. The gap in the stinger, which leads to the scorpion's internals, is the only source, and so it pulls and pulls, draining the beast without it even realising. Despite the draining being slow, as the lower abdomen bottlenecks it severely, it does not stop or slow.

  She smiles weakly as her body steadily regenerates. Over the course of two minutes, the Scorpion Mother's grip loosens, until she is dropped. However, she continues holding the stinger in place.

  The monster tries to flee, but its legs give out under its own weight.

  Astraea continues draining it of life for another five minutes until the creature has none left, and she releases the tail. Without a moment of hesitation, she runs to the two fighters, who are both unconscious at this point.

  Upon making contact with each of them, she can feel their bodies being ravaged by the potent venom. Fortunately for them, she has enough energy to completely neutralise it, as well as to repair damage done to their muscles.

  She sighs and makes her way over to ?elare, crouching down to him with a mild frown.

  “I am glad I was able to protect you in the end,” she whispers to herself.

  She lies down beside him and holds his still-burned hand, using more life energy to fully renew the charred skin.