Kaius held his breath — if either attack failed, this fight would be a painful one.
Two still-jerking shapes fell to the desert floor. Now tailless, the scorpion went berserk — a grinding call of fury and rage highlighted by the snapping cracks of its pincers.
“Now!” Kaius yelled, grinning wildly as he kicked off the sand to sprint forward. Porkchop let out a low growl, charging next to him — his greatshield discarded to preserve it in the absence of armor-cracking projectiles.
Unburdened by the weight of his scalemail, Kaius all but flew across the desert, handedly keeping pace with his brother, who normally so greatly outstripped his physicality.
The ruinbringer spotted them. Eight segmented legs rippled, an undulating stride that allowed it to move with a shocking speed.
Kaius peeled left, leaving his brother to meet the charge — a task Porkchop took great delight in.
Right before Porkchop collided with the beast he summoned a slab of jade, sand flying outwards from the path of its movement.
The ruinbringer slammed into the Shardwall with a crunch. Porkchop gave it no time to get its bearings. Utilising Jadecrash to hurl himself into the path of a frustrated snap of its claws, he knocked aside the blow before pummelling the limb into the ground with an arm covered in shining crystal.
Kaius grinned, and approached the scorpion from its flank.
The ruinbringer brought its other pincer to bare, lunging forwards in a furious attempt to savage Porkchop’s shoulder, and revealing the thin overlapping plates that covered its own elbow.
Now it was his time to strike.
A salvo of Hateful Nails slammed home, their arrival heralded by a succession of cracks as they tore their way through the air.
Individually, the spells did little — burrowing halfway into the tough chitin of the second tier beast before becoming stuck fast. With a full fifteen, Kaius slammed the stakes into every visible joint into the limb, hampering the scorpions every movement.
It howled.
His Nails bloomed.
Chitin crackled and expanded, ichor wetting the parched sand as the ruinbringer tried and failed to yank its injured limb away from the pain. Locked up and limp, the pincer dropped to the sand below.
Turning towards him, the scorpion lurched — only for Porkchop to block its advance. He roared his Bulwark’s Challenge, before summoned crystal fangs cracked the beast’s thorax. He latched onto its side to pull it back. When his taunt wasn’t enough, he summoned a Shardwall and forced its attention back to him.
It hissed, snapping at him with its remaining pincer.
Arrows and burning rays flew, sinking deep into its vulnerable eyes to wound its core and limit its senses.
Buoyed by the continued success of their plan of attack, Kaius grinned. He just needed to take out the other pincer, and they would be in the home stretch — not even the scorpion's prodigious healing could solve the problem of metal wire being threaded through its joints.
He just had to get on the other side of it first. Good thing he had a spell for that.
Kaius lept, activating a shunt to fling himself fifteen strides into the air. As his arc crested, he cast again, and again when he started to fall too early — motes of blue falling on the battle below him like rain.
Bleeding off his momentum with another detonation, he turned and spun. Porkchop was holding down the ruinbringer well, though not without injury. His chest plate was cracked, and blood leaked in a steady stream down his right leg.
Still, with only a single claw to handle, he was managing far better than their first battle. That didn’t stop Kaius feeling like his heart was going to leap out of his chest at every slamming collision.
Feeling his intent, Porkchop roared and used Jadecrash to parry its snapping claw upwards, giving him a clear angle.
He unleashed. His Nails sunk home.
A burning satisfaction rose in his chest as the beast howled, left defenceless and unable to wound them.
Now all they had to do was hit it until it died — a daunting enough task in its own right, considering how tough the creature was.