"Damn it!" Zed shouted as he hacked at the neck of the Iron Ant Guardian. "Why isn't this working?!"

Zed had thought it strange when the Guardian had no reaction to him attacking it, but he wrote it off as the bug being overconfident in the durability of its shell. After all, that was the mindset most common among the Drones, why would this one be any different?

Unfortunately, that confidence was far more deserving than he had expected.

Zed's attacks had managed to get through the first few inches of soft chitin without much difficulty, but he quickly hit something much tougher. Instead of carving long, shallow gashes, his spear was now leaving small scratches along the Guardian's neck. No matter how many times he swung, his attacks were simply being stopped by something just beneath the surface.

"AHHH!" Feeling frustrated, Zed used [POWER ATTACK] and [CRITICAL STRIKE], throwing all of his weight into stabbing the Guardian in the base of its neck.

The attack connected, and the giant ant stumbled as it let out a hiss of pain.

Zed grinned as he checked the damage he dealt to the ant.

{HP}: 1082/1200

'There we go!'

To deal so much damage even through the Guardian's impressive Armor stat, Zed had managed to achieve an attack power of nearly 300, higher than even most Mountain Goats could hope to achieve with [SKULL BASH].

'I don't think I have enough SP left to kill it like this, but it might be enough to break through more of the shell.'

However, Zed's face paled as he pulled his spear from the Guardian's neck. The tip of the blade, which once had a jagged, broken edge to it, was now bent and crooked from the impact of the attack. The bend was only slight, but the fact remained that the soft part of the Guardian's carapace had managed to distort an iron blade. In fact, upon closer inspection, he realized that the edge of the blade was actually starting to dull, showing that even his earlier attacks were damaging the blade.

'What the hell is this thing...!' Suddenly an idea came to him and he kneeled to inspect the area he had been attacking. Brushing aside dust and scraping away the remaining bits of chitin revealed exactly what Zed had been fearing.

Iron. Thin strands of naturally shaped iron cable. Each piece was less than an eighth of an inch thick, but they were laced and woven through the chitin so densely that it created a kind of chainmail.

'...This is what it meant by High-Density Iron Carapace,' he thought numbly. 'The amount of iron in the Drones was so minimal that I thought it would be less, but this is practically just iron armor!'

The iron found in a Drone's carapace was usually more like thin wires than anything else, and made up maybe a tenth of their total weight at best. With how densely packed the iron strands were here it must make up at least a third of the Guardian's total weight, or maybe more!

There was no way he could hope to cut or pierce iron armor with an iron blade. Even if they were just thinner strands they were being supported by the chitin around them. He had considered the possibility of his weapon breaking against this armor before, but now he knew for certain that his spear would shatter before it pierced this shell.

'What about the rest?'

This iron mesh was found around the neck, but what about the harder, solid pieces of carapace? Those didn't need to bend for movement, were they even denser with metal? Perhaps they weren't even a mesh anymore? Did the metal start melding together and become solid iron?

Suddenly, Zed was ripped from his thoughts by a sudden pain from his leg. His head whipped around to see a Drone biting down on his ankle, and several more ants crawling up behind it.

Zed hadn't noticed, but when the Guardian let out its cry of pain, it prompted the surrounding Drones to begin crawling up its legs to defend it.

Quickly grabbing the Drone and throwing it aside, Zed scrambled to his feet and began fighting the Drones. Fighting on the back of the Guardian was a bit more difficult, especially since the Drones weren't hindered by its movements in the slightest, but Zed didn't feel overly threatened, and his thoughts quickly returned to the gargantuan ant he was standing on.

As much as he hated to admit it, he just couldn't kill the Guardians. Their armor was too thick, and his weapon wasn't tough enough.

'I guess I'll just go back to targeting Warriors.' He turned around, ready to jump back to the goat's side of the battlefield. 'At least they give decent-WHAT THE SHIT?!'

Just as Zed was about to launch himself forward, he looked up to see Yang, flailing wildly and falling through the air straight toward him.

Panicking, Zed jumped straight up to avoid the falling Tank player as she landed face-first on the back of the Guardian, crushing a Drone with the sheer force of the impact.

For a moment Zed was weightless in the air, wondering how the hell Yang just got flung halfway across the battlefield.

'I guess she came over to deal with the Guardians,' he thought as gravity began to take hold of him again. 'Her and Alexx should have an easier time getting through that armor, or at least dealing damage through it.'

A moment later he saw Alexx launch out from between the Mountain Goats, with far more control and grace than Yang had shown.

Zed landed amongst the Drones while Alexx landed on the back of the Guardian, his landing drawing another groan of pain from the giant insect. Zed quickly leapt back onto the Guardian just as Yang got to her feet, wondering what their plan was.

~~~~~

'God fucking damn it, I hit my damn nose,' Yang thought as she climbed to her feet. Even with her pain settings reduced her face throbbed distractingly. She brushed her fingers against her face gently and the feeling spiked instantly. 'Yep, that's broken.'

In order to get closer to the Guardians, Yang had raised herself to level 26 and raised her STR to 50. With the increased strength, she stored her War Pick and leapt into the air. She was familiar with such high-level physical feats from other RPGs, and she planned to draw her weapon in mid-air to land a devastating blow to the Guardian. However, just as she began to jump a nearby Mountain Goat turned its head and her foot ended up clipping its horn as she flew past, causing her to tumble in the air.

She felt the ground shake as Alexx landed a few feet in front of her, quickly dispatching a few of the Drones that were crawling around. As she climbed to her feet, breathing through her mouth as blood clogged her nose, she looked down and realized that she had landed on a Drone herself and her armor was now painted with its guts.

'...Never before have I been so glad to have a broken nose,' she thought with mild amusement. She heard another impact and looked up to see Zed dusting himself off. His eyes widened as he looked at her face.

"You good?" Zed asked. He was still shouting, but the noise around the Iron Ants just low enough that they could communicate without destroying their throats.

"I'll manage," she replied. Reaching into her inventory she pulled out a bowl of water that she dumped over her face to clear the blood away. "We need to take this thing down, too many goats will die if we don't."

"So is there an actual plan right now?" Alexx asked, kicking a few more Drones away.

"I'll take care of the Drones," Zed said, pushing Alexx back. "You two kill this thing."

"Really? You're letting us take the kill?" Yang asked, surprised.

"Its armor is pure iron below the carapace, I can't pierce it."

Alexx and Yang's eyes widened at Zed's explanation.

"You're joking," Yang said absently.

"Nope."

Yang looked down at the Guardian, trying to imagine just how much iron was being hidden just below the surface. "...We need to get this bastard back to the village."

"Well, get to killing already!" Zed shouted as he struck down a Warrior.

With Zed's shout, Yang's mind focused on the task at hand. Pulling out her War Pick, she directed Alexx to start hammering on the Guardian's back while she aimed at the opening Zed carved on the ant's neck. As she swung her weapon to widen the opening further, the tip of the pick found a gap between the strands of iron, and the weight of the weapon helped force it through. The hefty stone weapon continued along its path, tearing chitin and metal clean from the ant's carapace. As the attack finished, Yang grinned menacingly at the depth of the wound. She would have this thing's head off in no time.

As that thought ran through her head she felt the ground nearly buckle beneath her as the Guardian let out another hiss of pain. Turning her head she saw Alexx on his knees, giving himself a better angle to punch his opponent while standing on it. The area around where his fist had made impact was smooth and bent inwards from the force of the punch.

Just as he pulled his arm back to punch again, the Guardian let out a piercing roar that rattled their bones and sounded like nails on a chalkboard. Desperately covering their ears, they were unprepared for the giant insect to start bucking like a rodeo bull, throwing them to the ground.

Scrambling to her feet, Yang quickly took in her surroundings. The three of them had landed behind the Guardian, right in the center of the Iron Ant horde, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of Drones and dozens of Warriors.

In front of them, the four Guardians had stopped their advance, with three holding the line while the one they had been attacking turned around to face them.

As the three players readied their weapons, the Iron Ant Guardian glared down at them with all the fury its expressionless face could muster. Saliva flew from its mouth as it let out another shriek, and the surrounding army closed in on them.