They had broken the cocoon and stopped The Devourer’s evolution partway, but what they saw now was simply awful. The creature maintained its perpetual smile, but liquid rot poured out of its eyes continuously, giving Iris and Jude the impression that it was crying. Writhing veiny tentacles pierced through parts of its torso while spewing liquid rot with every pulse. The clawed hands remained, and it still had no legs, but it seemed even bigger now. The large veins that had exploded its hind area and were attached to the shard within The Devourer whipped around it, sometimes even hitting The Devourer itself, tearing its flesh away, which would promptly regenerate into a throbbing, veiny scar. It could not walk, so it crawled on a pool of its own rot. Lumps of flesh fell to the side as it moved. The stench would have made Jude and Iris gag had their adrenaline not completely taken over their bodies. Finally, it roared, which also sounded like a wail. It was clearly in pain, so they decided to put it out of its misery.
“Get ready!” Jude yelled.
“Ready!” Iris replied.
As soon as he heard the reply from Iris, Jude cast Fly. His spectral wings made the environment even more somber, and to The Devourer, had the creature had any form of self-awareness left, it would have looked like Jude was the harbinger of its death.
With a beat of his wings, he launched forward. Iris remained behind, ready to heal him in the coming exchange.
Jude clashed with The Devourer at full speed, but the tentacles whipping around the creature actually acted as a shield. The collision left the tentacles tattered, but a moment later, they had fully recovered.
The Devourer’s regeneration had greatly increased, but everything around them was dead, so Jude thought that, eventually, it wouldn’t be able to regenerate anymore.
When the tentacles retracted from the collision, Jude was faced with a giant claw coming down on him. The Devourer had used the tentacle shield to cover Jude’s vision from its attack. Jude pushed himself back with another beat of his wings, managing to dodge the claws just barely. However, The Devourer did not relent. When the swiping claw hit the ground, it used it to propel itself forward. Its entire torso came off the ground as it launched through the air with its second set of claws extended in Jude’s direction. Instead of swiping, it used them to stab this time.
The creature was massive, but it was also quick. Jude hadn’t expected it to launch itself like that, so he was unable to get out of the way entirely. He saw The Devourer coming straight for him and changed the direction of his flight to go straight up. The Devourer’s claws dug through his right leg, severing it at the knee and leaving a trail of blood behind.
“Ahhhh!!!!” he screamed from the pain, but a second later he felt the soothing sensation of the injury closing up. Iris, though shocked by what she was seeing, did not hesitate when she saw half of his legs flying through the air.
“DO NOT DIE!”
“I’m trying not to!” Jude replied. “This is a lot harder than I thought,” he whispered to himself.
After taking a breath while in the air, out of the reach of The Devourer, who went crashing forward into the ground due to the momentum of its jump, Jude dove in the direction of the beast.
He beat his wings once to pick up speed. Twice.
BOOM!
His fist dug into the back of the head of the creature, who went face first into the ground. Flesh peeled off its face when it raised itself again to look a Jude. The streaming tears of liquid rot never stopped.
The Devourer roared again, in the same way it had before, but this time, after the roar it vomited a cloud of rot in Jude’s direction, similar to what they had seen when Jude split the cocoon in half.
It meant to suffocate Jude, but thanks to Iris’ strengthened panacea, which he had ingested just before the fight, all the cloud of rot did was cover his vision. But because Jude had his wings out, he was able to dissipate it with a single beat of them.
Nevertheless, when the cloud faded, Jude didn’t see The Devourer below him. Instead, knowing that it would not be able to reach Jude, The Devourer had decided to charge in Iris’ direction. It used its hand to rush toward her, and the tentacles behind it whipped the area around it fiercely.
Iris, by contrast, brought out her daggers and readied herself to take the advancing beast.
However, The Devourer hadn’t counted on Jude being able to get out of its cloud of rot. So, again, Jude dropped on its head with all his strength, leaving a crater at the point of the impact between The Devourer’s face and the ground.
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Because the battle was fierce, Jude had forgotten about the time limit of his skill, and as soon as he impacted The Devourer, his body toppled over and went rolling on the ground at incredible speed. He immediately cast Fly again, but knowing that he wouldn’t be able to control his flight in that manner, he decided to close himself in his wings and brace for impact. He broke through several dead trees before finally coming to a stop. When the wings opened, he lurched forward and vomited a pool of blood.
Again, Iris healed him as best she could from afar.
The Devourer, meanwhile, dug itself up from the crater, but some of the tentacles on its back had gone limp in the process.
When Jude saw that, he realized that the broken evolution had left it in a more precarious state than he had first thought. Like when people try to take a creature out of an egg early, and it dies soon after. The Devourer also seemed to be burning through whatever little life it had left, but that didn’t make it less dangerous.
“It’s dying! We just have to hold on!” Jude announced.
“You’re the one who’s dying!” Iris replied. She just wanted to keep him alive, and there was no way to know if she would be able to reattach his leg. “You said you were going to be careful, you idiot!”
“I’m trying!”
Jude took flight in the direction of The Devourer again. The creature was living purely on instinct, and it knew that the only life close enough to it at that moment were the two humans in front of it. It could not run to feed on nature. It had no time for that. It needed to eat them.
The Devourer released another cloud of rot when Jude was right in front of it, and though Jude tried to maintain his heading toward the creature, he missed it. A large tentacle slammed against Jude’s back as he flew by, driving Jude to the ground. He felt like he had broken a few bones from the impact.
Because of the cloud of rot, Iris couldn’t see what was happening from far away. She was unable to heal him immediately, and to try to get away, Jude beat his wings forward, scraping his entire body against the ground.
The Devourer turned to chase him.
Unable to control his speed, Jude slammed against the trunk of a dead tree. Nevertheless, he was out of the cloud, and as soon as that happened, he felt the warmth of Iris’ Heal through his body.
The Devourer was right behind him, however, and before Jude could do anything, the claws had pierced through his stomach.
“NOOOOO!” Iris screamed.
The creature picked Jude up still with the claws piercing through and brought him up to its face. It laughed and cried as the tentacles launched themselves in Jude’s direction. Jude immediately covered himself with his wings again, recasting them in the process to make sure they would stay up. The wings took the brunt of the impact, but the whipping didn’t stop.
While that was happening, Jude used his strength to hold on to The Devourer's hand. Then, he squeezed hard. Because The Devourer’s flesh was weak, his hands started digging through its skin. The creature bellowed and whipped at Jude’s wings even hard.
Jude still felt some of the impact, and more blood left his mouth, but he kept squeezing until he started falling to the ground. He had managed to amputate the creature’s hand with its claws still in him. Jude, in fact, was most afraid of removing the claws because that would cause an immediate hemorrhage, which would probably kill him in seconds.
While The Devourer trashed from the pain, Jude broke the claws that had pierced him off the hand he had amputated and flew away toward Iris.
She had shadowstepped much closer to the fight.
“DO NOT TAKE THOSE OFF!” Iris yelled.
“I know… Don’t… Worry…” his voice was weak when he spoke and his breathing was ragged.
“I’m joining the fight. You’re almost a walking corpse… You idiot…”
“I’ll be… Fine… You’ll… Heal me…”
“I don’t even know if I can at this point! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!”
“I’ll be bait… Attack… Head…”
“Damn it! Damn it! God damn it!”
“Don’t… Miss…”
With those last words, Jude took a deep breath and flew off again.
The beast had recomposed itself. More of its tentacles had fallen limp, and it was now using its left elbow to move. As it did, more of its flesh fell off, but the wounds weren’t closing with the same speed as before. More of its injuries were left open and unattended. It knew it was dying and raged against the cause of it.
The massive creature hurled itself against Jude. There were no more tricks. It was strength against strength. It went for another stab with its claws, but Jude’s agility, even in that state, was much higher with his wings, so he weaved in the air and dodged the attack. He flew all the way to The Devourer’s face, and there, he held on to the massive, grinning bony jaw and flew straight down. The Devourer lost its balance with its arm outstretched, and Jude held its head down by its jaw for as long as he could.
With a bamf, two blinding white daggers dug themselves into The Devourer’s head. The creature trashed more fiercely, and Jude was eventually thrown off, passing out in the process. Iris held on while casting Purify into The Devourer like she had done with the Anhanga leader.
A sudden lurch launched her off completely, but the creature fell to the ground, immobile, daggers still stuck to its head. The red crystal that had been embedded in it clinked away free on the ground.