Chapter 39

I ran forward, drawing the full burning power of a single tree, consuming it to ash in an instant, and formed the energy into a thick, chisel-like form. I leapt up onto the serpent’s side, using the force of the leap to power a slam, burying the four foot long chisel a foot deep in its’ hide. “Ella!” I shouted, seeing the powerful woman near enough to hear me. She turned, and I pointed at the chisel, making a punching motion.

She looked between me and Cenna, gritting her teeth. She lunged toward me, leaping up at the last moment to slam an immense punch down onto the chisel. It immediately sank into the hide up to the flattened base, exploding into flames a moment later.

At first, the wound didn’t seem to do much, just a small, blackened hole in its’ flesh. We retreated from the wound, the head in pursuit of Lyrella as it bit and snapped in her wake. As it coiled around, however, I could see the beginnings of a trickle of smoke pouring from the wound, thick and oily.

I drained another tree down to ashes to create a second spike, carefully slamming this one in several feet away from the first. Another thunderous punch sunk it up to the hilt, another gout of flame emerging. By the fifth time, the side of the beast was clearly aflame from within, the beast thrashing in agony. It thrashed its’ tail toward me in a sweeping attack, and I dove over it frantically, bouncing off the rocky scales to tumble down on the other side of it. A huge chunk of its’ hide simply slid off of it, the stony flesh collapsing to the ground like a falling building, exposing the huge chunks of bone beneath; thick ribs that flexed as the body moved, rotting muscles twisting and writhing with dark energy. My attacks hardly seemed to wound it, the burning flesh beneath resisting all but the most direct attacks.

I pulled in all of the energy I could from the area around me, scorching trees down to stumps to concentrate their energy in one place. This time, the chisel was nearly ten feet long, one end thick and angled like the chisel’s tip, slamming down into the exposed spine with a bone-rattling sense of impact, my arms aching from the rebound of trying to penetrate into the ancient bone. I knew I wasn’t strong enough to do it, and doubted that even Ella had the necessary strength; so instead I looked to Cenna, an idea taking shape.

“Cenna!” I shouted to her, where she danced along the lifted neck of the creature, daggers tearing into flesh as a combination of climbing anchors and offensive weapons, tearing into wounds her allies had previously opened. She paused in her assault, twisting to look back at me, and I nodded toward the huge chisel I was supporting with both hands. “Headbutt!”

She looked at me for a moment as if I’d lost my mind, before recognition dawned on her features, and she frantically crawled up the neck, stabbing into the jaw and along the eye-ridges. The massive serpent shook its’ head back and forth, trying to bite at her as she clung to its’ skull for all that she could. When it whipped its’ head aside, she relinquished her grip, flying out into open air. A moment later, the head pursued in an enormous strike, clearly deciding to put the rogue out of her misery once and for all.

The explosion of a smoke pellet in its’ face did nothing to deter its’ attack, blinding it to its’ target’s movements as it slammed through, enormous mouth part-opened as if to swallow her whole.

Instead, its’ huge muzzle slammed into the hilt of the chisel, the unmatched force of its’ strike driving the huge [Crystalflame] wedge in deeply enough to force it between the two vertebra, severing its’ spine and interrupting the dark energy flowing through it. There was a dull explosion of flame, the fires burning deeply into the wound, fully separating the upper and lower body.

The roar of agony that came from it flattened trees, throwing Ella free of the beast like a kite on a sudden breeze. Cenna, already off-balance from her landing, stumbled away until she struck into the trunk of a tree, stunned by the impact. I had thrown myself clear of the descending head, utterly unprepared for the force of the roar as I tumbled through the forest, moving about sixty feet away before I dumped enough momentum to stop, catching myself on the branches of a bush nearby. The severed tail thrashed like a thing possessed, laying waste to the forest around it, as much a danger to us as to the serpent itself. Its’ movements became sluggish and pained, the thick black smoke underlit by the fire now blazing within its’ body.

Bereft of its’ lower body, it was reduced to making quick bites and sweeping its’ body back and forth, its’ reach greatly reduced. Now the handful of us that remained in fighting shape harried it with attacks, pummeling it from all directions so it had trouble picking a target. This time, when it channeled its’ pestilent breath, it was only an anemic stream, spattering life-destroying poison over a thin spread of the forest; it had lost none of its’ potency, still melting the foliage it struck, but the immense wave of death had been reduced to a mere trickle. I could sense it struggling, weakening as it attempted to continue the fight with suicidal fervor, taking every opening to attack us, no matter how grievous the cost to itself.

With whole sections of its’ hide blasted or broken, the immense bleached rib-bones were visible in many places, the bulk of the spine a ridge along its’ cratered and broken back. “Ella!” I pointed, the shadowy energy a visible current running over and through cracked bone. “The spine!”

I ran toward the serpent’s enormous head, giving myself another burst of energy to launch myself into the air, muscles coiling with fire-augmented strength. I wrapped my fist in flames, pouring as much energy into it as it could hold, and slammed into the skull fist-first. The immense head recoiled, the edge of the eye socket cracking under the hit, and it twisted to try and bite at me, extending its’ neck.

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Ella snarled back at me, her voice an almost feral roar. “Don’t you tell me how to fight!” Nonetheless, she leapt on the opportunity and sliced down into the spinal ridge with a downward kick, cracking bone away like flecks of brittle stone. She knelt down, slamming one hand into the gap between hide and bone, gripping onto it for leverage, and began to pummel her other fist into its’ spine like a jackhammer, driving for the narrow connection between them. It thrashed hard, trying to throw her off, but every time it tried to turn its’ head, I was there; firebolts, fat and unstable, that gave small explosions wherever they struck, blowing away chunks of weakening flesh, some like darts, punching smoldering holes into bone. Her crippling strikes told in its’ thrashing, the stump of its’ upper body twitching this way and that, unable to coherently support the head.

I ran toward the severed stump, seeing the smoke and oily flames licking at the severed end, and plunged my consciousness into the flames, grabbing hold of them, and I heaved.

Slowly at first, but gathering speed, the fires clawed their way up through the unresisting body of the serpent, crackling and spitting as it turned holes in the hide into bellows, greedily sucking in air to fuel the building inferno that tore its’ way up the body. I could see the threads of dark energy fraying and burning away, the animating force shriveling up in the face of the powerful attack, unable to resist my Attuned energy scouring flesh from bone.

I ran along the side of its’ body, one hand pressed to the cratered, slippery flesh, and dragged the flames up with me. When it opened its’ mouth to launch another spray of poison, I crammed as much of my intent into the flames as I could manage, consuming the whole torrent of flaming energy to fuel a single attack. I rammed the energy upward in the form of a narrow spike, concentrating the energy as tightly as I could manage, until my intent frayed and the full force of it released, a wildfire crammed into a space the size of a man.

The mouth opened, and a torrent of flames came out instead of poison, blazing out through the mouth, the eye sockets, the gaps in the skull and around it where damage had rent it deeply enough. The head reared back, flames pouring out from within, scalding away the flesh and searing through bone.

At long last, the skull collapsed, severed from the body, and the whole rippling hulk began to fall apart, flesh returning to the soil below in torrents of sickly oil. The skeleton lay sprawled out over an immense distance, bones bleached and dull as if they’d laid in the sun for decades. The only sign of life was the dull yellow glow emerging from the eye sockets and mouth; a glow I quickly realized was not the same infernal animating force, but the sheen of a treasure orb.

I walked toward the open mouth, and reached for it, lightly touching the orb. I felt a thread of my intention connect to it, and then further threads leapt outward from it, touching each of us, and reaching out into the forest after those who had retreated.

I felt the pressure of a notification thrust itself into my awareness.

Congratulations! You have slain the Forest Leviathan.

EXP Gained; additional EXP gained for party size.

You have gained [Guardian’s Deathmark]

[Guardian’s Deathmark]: The bearer of this Mark has slain one of the Greenwarden’s Guardians. The Greenwarden’s attacks have reduced effectiveness against you. Your attacks against them are more effective. This may stack up to three times, with increasing effects.

I grinned at the description of the Deathmark, looking toward the distant, looming mountain of the Greenwarden itself, now lifting its’ head as if waking from a slumber, slowly swaying side to side as it took in the battles that still embroiled its’ two remaining guardians.

The living mountain drew its’ hands upward, and I felt an immense pulse of emotion pour outward from it, rage and loathing a physical force, staggering, throwing those already injured to their knees. One more notification appeared, this one a warning.

The Greenwarden calls for aid!

The Beast Tides come. Prepare yourselves!

I could hear the answering chorus of howls, hisses, and braying that wracked the forest, the previously quiescent forest creatures coming to the call of their Warden. The very trees trembled with the force of gathering movement, a distant, formless storm of sound that trickled through the trees.

I pointed toward the nearer of the two other Guardians, the immense Stag, and called out to the others. “Next Guardian! Now!”

Ella and Cenna joined me a moment later, both looking fatigued but relatively unharmed. Ella turned to the other surviving members of our war party. “Go and take care of the wounded. We’ll take him down. Don’t let the beasts claim anyone else.” She turned to me, her gaze flinty and cold. “Boss me around again and I’ll lay you out. But since you’re asking, yes, I’d love to go kill another giant monster.” A vicious glint of teeth showed in her smile.