Kal roared as he spun at the last moment before they clashed and brought Exterminator’s Regards across the giant face of Bestial Lord. The blade’s edge supported by his strength and a burst of Wrath Incarnate gouged a line across the demon’s face just below the eye.
The demon barely reacted to the injury and snapped its huge jaws towards him in response. His wrath still climbing Kal kicked himself away from the closing maw just as the radiant heat made his armor start to glow before landing on the ground with a slide.
Even this early Kal could feel the demon’s rage building, its killing intent trying to rival his soul. The demon’s eyes flashed and Kal felt his hair catch fire and his scalp burn slightly as spaces all around him started to spontaneously combust at random as the demon lept backwards and howled.
The air in and around its maw began to ripple as the temperature dramatically increased and Kal’s instincts screamed as the Bestial pointed its open jaws at him. Kal lept to the side as the place he had just been standing, the surrounding thirty feet, and one hundred feet behind it liquefied instantly.
But it didn’t end there, the Bestial Lord turned its head to track him and the invisible lance of destruction followed forcing Kal to move into a desperate sprint as the ground just feet behind him liquified.
It appeared the Bestial Lord had few more tricks other than just being a bigger beast.
Health:
2832/3000
Stamina:
6030/6360
Wrath:
454
Kal angled his run to cut toward the demon just as the heat beam ended and hacked his blade into the demon’s snout, carving a chunk from its face. Disturbingly he could see that the wound below its eye was already gone.
The demon reacted quicker this time and before Kal could kick away it had snapped down onto his armored forearm and leaped into the air dragging him with it. The armor twisted under the demon's fangs and started glowing from the radiant heat of the demon's maw.
Just as the demon landed the Kal activated Wrath Incarnate retaliated by jamming his between the demon’s fangs then twisting. It was tough and Kal roared with exertion as the demon slammed him into the ground. But the extra force allowed him to snap one of the demon’s fangs with a pained growl and splatter of burning black blood.
Wrenching his arm free of the demon’s maw Kal pivoted from beneath the demon's weight and slammed his blade deep into the underside of its jaw, carving a deep line as he rolled away from it. Both of them seemed to completely ignore the pain from their injuries neither of them slowing at all as Kal got to his feet, turned, and caught the Bestial Lord’s claws on his blade.
The ground cracked beneath his feet and his arms creaked under the force of the blow. Kal roared and deflected the claws but before he could counter the demon’s tail slammed into his back. The tail burned almost white hot as it slammed into him and sent him tumbling, bouncing once before slamming into a spire with a resounding crack.
The armor on his back had liquified under the strike and stuck to the skin of his back, continuing to slowly burn him. The pain of the attack and burn was easily ignored with Wrath Incarnate but it was clear that this armor wasn’t going to stand against the demon’s attacks.
The Bestial Lord lept back another thirty feet and focused its maw it him again, “Shit…” Kal threw himself to the side as the place he had just been sitting became molten glass and the spire began to collapse as its entire base vanished in an instant. His fire resistance was good but not that good. Even avoiding the attack he could feel minor burns starting to form.
The invisible lance of destruction followed Kal as he dashed between several spires each of them succumbing to the insane heat. One of the spires started falling towards the Bestial Lord so Kal lept onto it as it came down. The heat attack had paused, apparently reaching some kind of limit as Kal lept from the spire finally getting back in range.
Exterminator’s Regards pierced the game between two scales just above the demon’s burning eye and sunk to its hilt. This time he hadn’t even used Wrath Incarnate but still the blade had penetrated far easier than any of his previous weapons could have. The demon’s massive burning eye suddenly went black as it was filled with dark blood, his blade apparently hitting the back of the eye.
Health:
2432/3000
Stamina:
5732/6360
Wrath:
987
The Bestial Lord’s claw paw came up to smash him into the ground but Kal didn’t want to lose this opportunity so instead of leaping away he activated Flesh of Iron for the first time along with Wrath Incarnate before wrenching his sword back and forth in the demon's skull and slamming his fist into the demon’s eye.
The eye popped covering him in gore an instant before the paw came down and tore from its head. There was so much strength behind the blow the air seemed to crack as he slammed into the ground. He felt what was left of his chest plate warp under the strike before being sheared completely off into a glowing red mess. Kal however was only left winded as the weight of the paw crushed him into the ground but the claws failed to break the skin due to Flesh of Iron.
Health:
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2232/3000
Stamina:
5112/6360
Wrath:
543
The lack of damage almost made Kal laugh. He could barely feel the skill working at all but it clearly had an effect. No doubt using Wrath Incarnate at the same time had stacking benefits but he didn’t think it would be anywhere near this effective.
Kal roared as he shoved the paw aside using every point of strength he had. The moment he got a clear view of the rest of the demon he dived into a roll, this time towards the still close demon to avoid a face-melting lance of heat. Maiming the demon’s eye and avoiding the possible death blow was enough to finally bring their fight to the next stage.
[Entities Marked: Bestial Lord, Enraged]
He couldn’t help but smile as his wrath generation doubled. He still hadn’t activated Wrathful Regeneration to save up enough for bursts of Wrath Incarnate. Now there would be even less waiting.
Kal came to his feet below the body of the demon and carved another channel along its underbelly as his wrath burned. Crimson flame spread from the wound to mix with the blood pumping from the Bestial Lord. Even so, he could see the demon’s insane regeneration speed kick in as the line quickly began to close over despite the flames of wrath and the severity of the wound.
Before he could do more damage the demon threw itself backward in an attempt to get him within range of its heat attack but Kal jumped and buried his blade in its ribs and went with it, wasting the attack before he kicked with its hind legs with what he was sure would normally have shattered his spine.
Kal hurtled through the air before slamming into the side of a spire with enough force to shatter the side he hit. Again he was winded and dazed but he felt no serious wounds as he refocused on the already recovering Bestial Lord.
Health:
2103/3000
Stamina:
4832/6360
Wrath:
329
This time it wasn’t preparing its lance attack, instead the air all around it had started to shimmer as the temperature spiked. The stone at its feet melted and began to shift unnaturally and Kal immediately got a bad feeling about this skill.
Kal pulled himself from the wall and lept through the air towards the demon. He was only about halfway when the molten stone suddenly moved. A huge garghound, almost the size of the Bestial Lord exploded from the molten stone and snatched him from the sky before slamming him into the ground.
[Lesser Lord Aspect | Conjured Entity 80]
Kal felt his left leg snap as he was caught in the conjured monster’s jaws. He grunted but ignored the pain and marked it with Slayer’s Intent before slamming his fist into its fangs. Infused with his wrath and Flesh of Iron it was like his hand was made of steel as it shattered the fangs holding him with ease.
The aspect didn’t react to the damage at all and instead tried to bite down on him with its other fangs but Kal had already kicked himself away and activated Wrathful Regeneration.
This garghound was clearly different from all the other variants he had seen. Its scales still seemed to radiate heat but these were shiny like obsidian instead of the plain dark gray or black like the others and its eyes were literally bright orange flames instead of the fiery but physical eyes of the normal variants.
Kal glanced to see what the Bestial Lord was doing and was disturbed to see it continuing to warp the air around itself. It was trying to make another one. Kal pulled a random axe from his amulet and threw it at the demon while it was distracted but annoyingly the aspect immediately paused its own attack to leap into the way of the axe, allowing it to dig deep into its side.
He threw two more to give his leg time to heal as tried to form a plan.
[Entities Marked: Bestial Lord, Enraged | Lesser Lord Aspect, Hostile]
If it brought another in he could mark it and keep Wrath Incarnate active nearly the whole time. His soul suddenly seemed to explode with anger or impatience just as the storm overhead fell into a cycle of back-to-back detonations sending more bolts of destruction throughout the dome.
He was wasting time. Now wasn’t the time to think it was time to kill. Kal reached into his amulet and picked out another sword much like the one he had originally found in Mira’s bunker just a bit smaller. He activated Edge of Malice and an almost serrated edge covered the original.
A second lord aspect pulled itself from the molten stone surrounding the Bestial Lord.
[Lesser Lord Aspect | Conjured Entity 70]
[Entities Marked: Bestial Lord, Enraged | Lesser Lord Aspect, Hostile, | Lesser Lord Aspect, Hostile]
Health:
2213/3000
Stamina:
4232/6360
Wrath:
492
Kal’s soul soared as it competed against the killing intent of his enemies and the feeling overflowed into his mind forcing a grim sneer. The storm seemed to increase its rhythm of destruction, every detonation reverberating through Kal’s heart and soul like a war drum.
Before him, the Bestial Lord stood back behind its conjured protectors all brimming with strength and power but as the chaos of the storm continued and his soul raged he knew how this fight would end.
The enemy didn’t charge him, he could sense that they too felt something change as he regarded them with his swords in hand.
“What would you do if you were free Kal?” Fyborh said, more serious than usual.
A long-forgotten conversation flickered into his mind, its context was unclear but Kal knew how had responded and somehow it still felt true.
“I would kill them all…”
Unity: 25% => 30%
----------------------------------------
“Stay in formation! Illusionists! Scramble our attacks!” Elder Jaliete’s voice rang through the minds of everyone present on the path almost painfully. Dalen ignored most of them as he stood back handing out bombs as fast as he could make them.
Surprisingly they worked quite well against the demons but he was too weak to be on the frontlines here. That however didn’t stop him from helping in any way he could by handing out every free bomb he had to some who could use it.
More and more demons were entering the path. The first few dozen were easy enough to handle but not long after the damned things seemed to double in number, then they doubled again. Dalen was just glad the demons seemed to lack any kind of ranged option.
Melisia, Leo, and Dalen were now near the back of the line to protect the rear. Leo was powerful enough to manage on his own as he brought fiery death down onto the kuroxet demons and their mounts. The worst of it was at the front of the line though more and more came out of nowhere and Dalen even saw a few flashes of green flame arcing over the soldiers to strike the illusionists.
The storm above exploded once more. Dalen tried to ignore it but something kept drawing his eyes to it. Leo incarcerated another half dozen kuroxet and looked as well, his face as concerned as Dalen felt.
They could both feel it and judging by the expression Melisia kept making every time Dalen spared the time to look she could too. Then it happened.
Warning: This demi-plane intended mana affinity has been corrupted. Changes in atmospheric mana may result in an environment that is incompatible with mortal life.