Chapter 20 – White Hot

Chrono half expected the noise from the hulking sand monster to die down at least slightly at some point during his chase of the beast, but instead he could swear it actually grew louder. This made approaching the shell to attempt to pierce it with his sword more difficult the longer he put it off, and it was already next to impossible. His lightning magic also failed to slow down the monster, although he had not yet attempted Luminaire for fear of blasting a hole in the already unstable clay underfoot. He felt useless.

He was not alone in being ineffective, however. Even with his superior armor blocking out some of the particles of sand pelting the party rapidfire, waves of sand from the perimeter immediately around the monster's shell pushing him back far if he tried advancing. Coppelia, more nimble than Egmont by far, had a slightly better go of it, leaping over the worst of the ground waves, but she still could not overcome blasts of hot air and geysers of sand that periodically shot out over the edge of the clay surface, almost as if they were aimed at keeping her at bay, knocking her backwards and into the air as effortlessly as if she were a rag doll.

This left Paem as the team's primary attacker. She had shed her calm demeanor, staring intently ahead as she jogged to keep up with the monster's pace, staff drawn and glowing Dreamstone red. Her lip twitched slightly as a summoned shadow snake bit into the shell of the monster and recoiled. With a flick of her wrist, she triggered an explosion of shadow near the front of the monster's head. She then ducked to the side as a particularly large chunk of clay flew up from the abyss and nearly struck her head; her reflexes saved her, and it merely grazed her cap.

Paem's staff flashed even brighter red for a second, and another shadow explosion rocked the front of the the creature's head. Two more followed it, and for a second it looked as if they might actually have stunned their target. A high pitched screech tore through the air, like a stone scraping a chalkboard, and the monster actually slowed up slightly, but as soon as the noise died down the thing resumed its previous speed, still inching its way toward the city. A flurry of ground clay flew at Paem all at once, and she found herself forced to break off her attack and regroup with the rest of the party.

"I can't seem to hit it hard enough," she panted at Chrono. "Its shell is amazing."

Coppelia nodded, an odd gesture to make while running but one she somehow managed to make appear natural. "Indeed. It is very much like a tank. I would like to think that I could hurt it were I not limited in my reach, but its projectile defenses are seamless."

Chrono looked back and and forth between Coppelia and the monster, hoping an idea would surface in his mind, some tactic that could target some weakness, but nothing presented itself. The party's long range attacks could not penetrate the shell, and their short range attacks could not even reach.

"I think," he said, "we might have to wait this out. See if something comes up. Maybe there will be reinforcements from the city."

Paem and Egmont agreed, and the three of them retreated to a safe distance, relieved for the moment to be away from the brunt of the storm of sand particles and waves and wind gusts. Coppelia stayed behind and redoubled her attempts to leap onto the monster's back, but her efforts remained futile.

Chrono felt a burning sensation in is chest from all the running, and his legs ached, but he pushed ahead, fearful of falling so far behind the monster as to be unable to catch up. He shuddered to think what could happen to a city in the path of such a destructive force. Memories of Lavos flickered through his mind as if to taunt him, but he shut them out. Failure, whose cost could include many innocent lives, was not an option.

The only weapon remaining in his arsenal was Luminaire, but Chrono figured he would get at most one shot of that, and he did not intend to waste it until he was sure he could put it to good use, and "good use" in this situation meant making the monster dead, preferably without the risk of causing all of the surrounding ground to collapse and kill them all. Still, with nothing else working, he could not count out even last resort tactics.

The time chasing the sand monster felt like days to Chrono. Any minute, he knew either his egs or lungs would give out, and he'd be forced to take a break to regain his strength. Any minute, he or one of his friends could be hit by a chunk of rock or clay and knocked unconscious or worse. Any minute, some horrifying possibility could come true, and he'd find himself dead, not just in dead in a bizarre land beyond the End of Time, but dead in a bizarre land beyond the End of Time in a place even the residents considered to be the middle of nowhere! The middle of nowhere, as far from Nadia as he could imagine.

Chrono choked back a tear and stopped running. Gasping for breath, he hung his head.

He felt a hand on his back. A cold hand. For a minute, he imagined it was Nadia, and she was telling him that everything would be just fine. He's stumbled into a misplaced Gate and fallen back into the 11th century, ready to live out his days happily and peacefully. He could even hear her voice.

"Look up, Chrono," Nadia said. "Look up."

Drawn to his illusion, Chrono obediently followed the instruction. What he saw snapped him back to reality.

"Look up, Mister Chrono," Coppelia was telling him. He had not even seen her come over.

"Huh?" Chrono managed only the barest of responses before he caught a glimpse of the horizon, which was now dotted with small, distant people charging in his direction atop steeds that resembled camels. Bipedal camels, faster than any camel he had ever seen before, but camels nonetheless.

"Mister Chrono," said Coppelia in an inappropriately reassuring voice, "please follow me."

Chrono felt a tug on his arm. Coppelia had no intention of letting him stop to think before dragging him even farther away from the sand monster than he already was.

Just why she wanted him far away became clear when Chrono looked over at the monster, which was now surrounded by splotches of fire. Short bursts of flame spouted up from the sand around its head and then died out. These were followed by more as a volley of fireballs arced across the sky and struck the monster's shell. Chrono's first thought was that the mounted troops were some sort of squadron of archers firing exploding arrows, but another glance at them told a different story. The fire actually originated in the mouths of the camels, who spat it at the sand monster.

"Lady Qilin's city guard," said Paem. "We have reinforcements."
"A most peculiar cavalry," noted Egmont.

Paem smiled. "Quite the beast of burden they ride, no? This battle is not over yet."

A fiery explosion rocked the ground near the monster. It responded by letting rearing back and letting loose a frightful roar. Then, to everyone's surprise, it countered the volleys of fire with a stream of lightning bursting forth from its mouth and striking the sand around where the city guard troops ran. With a loud bang, the clay surface broke into pieces and flew in all directions, scattering the camels and temporarily halting their attack. One of them panicked and began spitting fire in all directions, more or less at anything that moved.

Chrono watched in horror as one of the camel's fireballs grew larger and larger as it sped toward him. Fearful of either a direct hit or of an explosion from a near miss, he ducked over to the side and braced himself. His whole body went limp as he watched the endpoint of the projectile's path: Egmont.

Egmont, however, did not dodge or even flinch. Rather, he lashed out with his left arm, fingers spread wide, and let the fireball crash into his hand. The instant it did, the outline of a purple shield flickered faintly into view and then faded. Egmont staggered backwards as the fireball deflected off of the shield and into the air, landing a safe distance away.

"You can do that?" Paem asked. "That is useful to know."

Coppelia tugged on Chrono's arm again, insisting, "I know how we can beat this!"

"You do?" said Chrono.

"Please allow me to explain," said Coppelia, and she huddled the party together to explain her plan.

XXX

The monster's attention seemed to be wholly on the fire camels now, but no amount of flaming explosions could slow it down. It marched forward unflinchingly, driving the camel knights back with its lightning energy attack and bit by bit crushing ever more of the desert surface. Its unceasing march to the city of God's Hand was like that of an executioner slowly making his way to the gallows to bring the pitiful end to some sad prisoner, who can do nothing but watch and wait. Nothing so far could even stall the creature; at the back of everyone's mind sat the question of just what would happen if it reached its destination.

Most of the defenders of the city had naught by desperate thoughts on the whole matter, but the four in Chrono's party had one last desperate gambit to play before the worst could happen. Three of them ignored the fires, braved the waves of sand, and dodged the debris thrown up by the monster in an effort to get close enough to put their plan into effect. The fourth, Egmont, stood a fair distance away, eyes on the camel knights. When Chrono, Coppelia, and Paem had closed enough distance on the monster to be within throwing distance, they turned and began running parallel to it, at all times keeping far enough away to avoid the worst of the flying chunks of clay.

Soon enough, the monster let loose a lightning attack, and one of the fire camels panicked. As before, this led to a fireball being launched at Egmont, who stood his ground and prepared his shield. He let the fireball hit him at an angle that deflected it toward the monster.

The monster did not see it coming. With a loud crash, it impacted the sand directly in front of the monster's face, shooting flames into the air and throwing a cloud of sand and clay up in front of the thing's eyes. For a fateful second, the monster slowed itself to a crawl, waiting for the cloud of sand to clear so it could retaliate against the camel knights. In that second, it lost track of Coppelia, and that was when she made her move.

With a mighty heave, Coppelia threw Chrono nearly straight up in the air, up over the sand cloud, giving him a direct look at the top of the monster's head. Then, while in midair, Chrono took his chance and cast Luminaire.

The whole desert went white and silent. Chrono's heart nearly pounded its way out of his chest. He attempted to steady himself but could not do so while he still few through the air. Wind and sand buffeted him, stinging worse than ever. His eyes useless, Chrono pinched them shut to keep the sand out. His limbs flailed almost involuntarily. For a brief moment, Chrono found himself as helpless as he had felt since the first time he traveled through a Gate.

Then, with a thump, Chrono landed, hard, on his should. Ignoring the pain, he crawled to his knees and drew his sword. With his right hand, he plunged the sword as deep as it would go into the surface of his landing spot, and with his left hand he felt to see if the ground was moving. Slowly and deliberately, he opened his eyes.

Paem called to him from down below. Without even giving his eyes time to adjust back to normal levels of light, Chrono struggled to his feet and balanced himself against his sword. Although he could hardly hear her, Chrono could see Paem gesturing for him to move forward. He did so, taking as much time as he needed to make sure he did not slip and fall to his death. It took him nearly two entire minutes before he was able to stand directly above the monster's head, looking down on it from the top of its shell.

Chrono waved down to Paem and took his sword in both hands. He took a deep breath, tapped his foot three times, and them leaped forward into the air, tilting his body forward as he went. As he descended toward the monster's head, a rush of purple, blue, and black magical energy shot out of Paem's staff and collided with Chrono's outstretched sword, disappearing into the blade and causing it to emit a purple glow. Chrono had little time to appreciate the aesthetics of the technique, though. Nothing could stop his downward momentum as he plunged his blade into the top of the monster's head. After that, all Chrono could do was hold on for dear life.

The thing shrieked louder than ever before. It thrashed its head from side to side, tossing Chrono back and forth with each change of direction. Only Chrono's iron grip on his sword, still embedded in his foe's forehead, kept him from flying off to the side. The monster shrieked louder, and then it began shaking its head up and down while rocking its massive body from side to side. Chrono swung forward, twisted himself around so he faced the creature head on for the downward arc of his swing, and planted both of his feet ahead of him, kicking at one of the creature's ugly red eyes. Still gripping the sword, Chrono found himself flicked backwards and around nearly three hundred sixty degrees, twisting halfway through, and landing on his feet, facing forward, on top of the monster's head. Planting his feet as best he could, he drew his sword from the wound he inflicted and jumped as far forward as he could go, landing on some of the undisturbed clay in front of the monster. He then scrambled as far away as he could go while the monster finished its death throes.