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He got a surprisingly good view of the action from this strange position. He couldn’t comprehend how this giant thing was able to move so fast with part of its body still coiled around him. It felt like speeding down the road on a motorcycle, and when yet another gallium boulder came flying toward them, the worm’s long tail surged forward and spiked it right back at the attacker like a volleyball.

They’d gotten close enough now for Taj to make out the look of surprise on the Abolish servant’s face just before his own boulder clobbered him. The rock dug into the road and stuck there, hissing with steam.

If the Abolisher was still alive under there, then he would probably need a while to recover and dig himself free, but apparently, he wasn’t going to get that much time.

A third worm appeared from over the line buildings along the right side of the street and went straight for the embedded boulder, coiling around it and smothering it. He could see another Hun’Kui riding atop it.

And Taj squinted, because he again found himself questioning what his eyes were telling him. A dark ooze emerged from the worm’s body, coating the rock and seeping down into in the road.

Was that the fabled sludge? It must’ve been. So even though these worms were smaller, they could still generate sludge like the bigger ones.

He was both fascinated and repulsed.

A string of explosions arrived from down the road, along with a flurry of flaming acid and flying material. They pelted the oozing worm that was presumably trying to retrieve and capture the buried servant.

Taj saw the new attackers. They were still rather far away, but they must have been the rest of the Abolishers, having finally caught up.

The attacks seemed largely ineffectual against the preoccupied worm, but they still did not last very long, as Taj saw worms with riders appear over the building and convene on the enemy. Within moments, the servants were being jackhammered into the ground and smothered.

It didn’t take much longer before they were restrained, much like himself.

And Taj was finally beginning to get the picture. These worm riders were some kind of peacekeeping force here. And clearly quite powerful.

The rider for his worm was talking to him again, this time with less intensity.