When the ancient bell on the Geochelone's back shattered, a golden, spherical Whisperin Core lay exposed beneath it.
Unlike Whisperin-type Tacet Discords, which had distinctly humanoid features and dropped star-shaped cores, animal-type Tacet Discords like the Bell-Borne Geochelone belonged to a different classification altogether: Howlers.
"The weak point's wide open. This is our chance!"
"Now comes the hard part."
Being forced off the Geochelone's shell moments ago hadn't fazed either of them. They could always get back up there. One teleportation gate was all it took.
Then a forest of ice erupted from the earth.
The Bell-Borne Geochelone had survived for untold ages as a Calamity Class entity, and those long millennia had sharpened its mind to something approaching human intelligence. It adapted to their teleportation immediately.
Spikes of ice, each several meters tall, burst from the ground across Bell-Borne Ravine. The same technique that had skewered and instantly killed the Lampylumen Myriad, only denser, more numerous, carpeting the terrain in every direction.
What had been ice spikes became an ice forest.
Both Rovers relied on line-of-sight for their teleportation. That ability was now sealed. The Geochelone had deduced the mechanics of their power.
"Clever bastard. This complicates things."
"Look out!!"
She tackled him to the ground without hesitation. A water-beam breath swept overhead like a laser, annihilating everything in its path.
If she hadn't knocked him flat, that blast would have torn him apart.
The ice forest, sheared clean through by the beam, refroze in an instant, walls of frost knitting themselves back together, continuing to block their sightlines and deny them any chance at spatial teleportation.
But through the ice forest, the Geochelone could fire freely. Bombardment after bombardment, wave after wave of ranged attacks, grinding the two Rovers down inch by inch.
My turn now.
An hour passed.
Even as a Tacet Discord, the Geochelone found itself grudgingly impressed. Under relentless, merciless bombardment, both Rovers were still alive. Still fighting. Barely even injured.
Are these two really human?
In all its centuries of existence, it had never encountered humans this absurd.
No matter. The trap was ready.
This ends now, humans.
"Calamity Class... really is something else."
"On the bright side, I've got all its attack patterns memorized now."
Deep within the ice forest, both Rovers were panting for the first time in any battle they'd fought. They looked at each other, bodies crusted with frost, their swords frozen solid and dulled past the point of cutting.
Stamina wasn't the real problem.
The cold was. It had sapped their agility.
Anyone else would have died in the Geochelone's opening salvo, let alone survived an hour. But both Rovers had catalogued every one of its attack patterns during the Echo legion's earlier fight. Over the past hour, no matter what it threw at them, they'd spotted the openings and dodged clean, taking almost no damage.
Even so, fighting in cold this extreme had cut through even their conditioning. The chill had bored down to bone.
Then the sky went dark.
"Huh? Why did it..."
Oh no. That move?!
A black shape was plummeting from above, growing larger by the second. He recognized it instantly: the same technique the Geochelone had used to flatten the Tempest Mephis and the Thundering Mephis, crushing them beneath its own body weight.
How something that enormous, that sluggish, could launch itself that high into the air defied all reason.
But none of that mattered. This attack had to be dodged.
At their current physical state, neither of them could survive the impact of an ultra-heavy Calamity Class Tacet Discord dropping on them like a falling mountain.
Then her expression changed. The teleportation gate was open, but her legs wouldn't move.
"No! I'm frozen to the ground!"
Creeping ice had locked both feet in place without her noticing. She could break free in seconds.
Seconds they didn't have. Their time-stop ultimates had already been used. Both were still on cooldown.
This was the Geochelone's trap all along.
The only action left to her, the only thing instinct allowed, was to shove him toward the open gate. Even if only one of them escaped, he had to get out.
"Don't you dare!!"
He read her intent the instant their eyes met and refused it outright.
A crisis this small doesn't get to separate us. Teleportation gate... maximum scale. Open!!
In the heartbeat before the Geochelone's shadow swallowed them whole, he tore the gate open above their heads and stretched it to its absolute limit.
She understood immediately. Resonance surged through her as she poured her own power into expanding the gate alongside his.
If they couldn't teleport themselves out...
...they'd teleport the Geochelone away.
"GROAAA...?!!"
The Geochelone's eyes went wide. One moment it was plunging toward two tiny humans. The next, a gate of scarlet light bloomed beneath it, and there was nothing to stop its fall. It dropped straight through.
"That... that was close!!" they gasped in unison, exhaling shaky breaths of relief.
That one had been down to the wire.
The blue butterfly perched on his shoulder was trembling, visibly shaken. In truth, the Shorekeeper hadn't been able to resist lending a hand at the last moment, quietly feeding her own power into widening the gate.
"Hah!"
With a sharp burst of force, she shattered the ice encasing her legs. Those long limbs, catching the light of the scattered ice crystals, looked sculpted from glass.
But she felt a pointed stare boring into her.
She turned. He was looking at her, unmistakably unhappy.
"Don't ever do that again."
"Sorry. That was wrong of me."
No promise that it wouldn't happen again. She knew herself well enough to know that given the same situation, she'd make the same choice.
He knew it too. His eye twitched, and he flicked her on the forehead. If their positions had been reversed, he'd have done the same thing.
Still.
"When we get back tonight, brace yourself."
"Ahem! So, uh, where did the Geochelone end up?"
Guilt made for an excellent motivator to change the subject. They'd been so focused on getting rid of it that neither had paid attention to the destination coordinates.
Then...
BOOM.
A meteor-strike impact thundered from nearby. The shockwave pulverized the ice forest in an instant, and both Rovers understood: the Geochelone had been in freefall this entire time.
Their gate had sent it right back up into the sky, only offset by a few dozen meters. Not enough to land on them.
And...
"Pfft!"
"Ha! Oh, that's perfect."
One look at the Bell-Borne Geochelone and both Rovers dropped out of their combat stances entirely, clutching their sides with laughter. Because a certain turtle had flipped over.
The mighty Calamity Class Tacet Discord, the Bell-Borne Geochelone.
Shell down. Four legs in the air.
It scrambled desperately to right itself, stubby limbs flailing, clawing at nothing but empty air, accomplishing absolutely nothing. The sight was nothing short of comedy gold.
No... no, no, no. I've flipped...
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Note: Reset today guys! Lets reach even higher ranking
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