They fell upon Zeke like feathered piranha, moving quickly enough that he couldn’t even begin to react to each of the bird-men. He’d started the fight by using [Hell Geyser] to thin the flock a little. However, they were endless tide, each one durable enough to endure all but the strongest flames. Zeke met them with Voromir’s latest ability, sending a huge, red projection of the hammer to slam into the surging mass of foes.

That helped, knocking the first wave of monstrous bird-men aside. Yet, Zeke was shocked to see that they were largely unhurt by the impact. In addition, when they went sailing through the air, they used their wings to arrest their momentum and glide back into battle. The tactic seriously hindered the viability of Zeke’s initial salvo, but he met them with his normal gusto.

“Aviaki,” said Eveline. “Between levels sixty and seventy. Probably the strongest force yet.”

Zeke appreciated her commentary, largely because, in the middle of battle, he often forgot to use [Inspect]. However, he didn’t need her input to recognize how dangerous the aviaki were. Each time they landed a blow – which was quite a frequent occurrence, given their speed as well as the sheer numbers they could muster – they dug deep gouges in his rocky form.

Using [Cambion’s Awakening], Zeke had no issues healing the initial damage. Yet, he knew that if things kept going like that, he would start to fall behind. So, he got to work further thinning the flock, swinging his hammer with ruthless efficiency and boundless strength.

And with so many of the monstrous humanoids surrounding him, he couldn’t miss.

Still, despite that, Zeke was disappointed in the effectiveness of his attacks. Hitting them wasn’t the problem. Rather, the issue was that their odd combination of light weight, ability to glide, and likely, some sort of skill, the aviaki warriors were well-equipped to deal with his brand of blunt-force trauma.

Never before had he wished that he’d received some sort of bladed weapon from that quest back in the troll caves. Usually, with his high strength and Voromir’s ability to alter its weight to match his might, Zeke never had cause to question his choice of arms. Yet, blunt force was not the perfect tool for every situation.

Even so, Zeke had no thoughts of switching the weapon. Instead, he altered his tactics. Instead of sweeping attacks that would hit multiple targets with each swing, he began to use overhand blows that smashed the feathered monsters into the ground. With the turf as a backstop, the aviakis had no way to dissipate the momentum, and after changing his methods, Zeke was rewarded with the twin sounds of breaking bones and the agonized screeches of his enemies.

However, the alteration of his tactics didn’t come without a cost. There was a reason he typically employed long, sweeping attacks against hordes of enemies. It was the most efficient way to deal with numerous foes, largely because each swing could impact multiple enemies at once. The overhand attacks, by contrast, could only affect one enemy at a time.

“I feel like I’m playing whack-a-mole,” he muttered, leveraging a thunderous blow against an aviaki. Voromir’s head slammed into the ground, pulverizing the monster. Yet, because of the nature of the attack, he received a dozen blows from the creature’s comrades in return.

“Could always end it the easy way.”

“I’m not using [Wrath of Annihilation].”

“Why not? Just tell the undead girl to vacate the premises, use your skill, and collect whatever rewards this dungeon has,” Eveline suggested. “Seems like an easy way to do it.”

Zeke grabbed one of the aviaki around the neck, then smashed it against the ground. At the same time, he backhanded another with Voromir, before snapping out a front kick that cleared a little space. For good measure, he tossed the now-dead aviaki at its fellows before hefting his hammer with both hands and bringing it down with herculean force. The unlucky monster that found itself on the wrong end of that attack crumpled, its bones breaking so violently that they tore free of its hide, becoming dangerous, bloody shrapnel that tore through the rest of the flock.

They barely reacted, coming at him with ruthless and unthinking ferocity.

“It’s a limited skill. I can’t use it anytime I want to,” he said inwardly. “If I waste it here, it won’t be available for the boss.”

That was the skill’s major weakness. It was difficult to gauge exactly how much time had to pass between uses – density of mana seemed to affect it – but the reality was that it was no repeatable attack. To a lesser extent, the same was true of [Hell Geyser], which could only be used a handful of times before it needed to recharge. So, against the horde of aviaki, who were more annoying than dangerous, Zeke chose to rely on more mundane attacks powered by muscle, rather than mana.

Eveline didn’t like that, but she was a big proponent of shock and awe tactics. Hit them hard in the beginning, and the fight would be over before it ever really started. By contrast, Zeke tended to save his most effective – and deadly – attacks for truly dangerous situations. That attitude came from the fact that, until relatively recently, he’d lacked large-scale, flashy attacks. Instead, he’d been forced to fight – more or less – without overt skills, other than [Leech Strike] and its descendants.

So, with that in mind, Zeke continued to pummel the creatures into the ground. Meanwhile, Talia made her presence known on the other side of the battlefield. Zeke had trouble tracking her movements – she moved so quickly that it was almost impossible to see her with the naked eye – but the results of her passing were far more noticeable. In the back lines, aviaki fell. Some were ripped to shreds, while others decomposed in the space of seconds. Still others were blanketed in a layer of frost that slowed them considerably.

Her style was effective. She slowed them, afflicting them with rot and poison, while moving far too quickly for the monsters to respond.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Much better than your normal strategy of letting them hit you,” Eveline remarked. “I bet she won’t even be wounded.”

“Until she finds something that can keep up with her,” Zeke said, pulverizing another monster. To punctuate Eveline’s commentary, a dozen more aviaki ripped into his rocky body. None did more than superficial damage, but it was starting to add up. “Then, she’ll have issues.”

“With that speed, it’s a rare foe that will be able to match her.”

“Just like it’s rare for me to find someone who can rival my strength? Rare doesn’t mean impossible, as we’ve seen,” Zeke stated, continuing the fight. “I hope she has some wild card to play against someone who can counter her strong points.”

After that, the conversation ceased, leaving Zeke to turn his entire attention to the fight at hand. The aviakis continued to pour out of the temple, leaving Zeke to wonder just how the building housed them all. Yet, he didn’t have the leeway to ponder that particular question. Instead, it took the entirety of his brainpower to keep from being overwhelmed by the tide of bird-men.

The creatures had no arms to speak of. Instead, they only had wings, enormous talons on their feet, and sharp beaks. Yet, they knew precisely how to use those natural gifts to their advantage, leaping in, talons first. Over time, Zeke took more damage than he would have liked, and slowly, it started to outpace [Cambion’s Awakening]. Despite all of his advantages, there was a certain strength in numbers. Sure – the group had to cross a minimal threshold of power for them to become more than just fodder, but the aviakis certainly met that requirement. As a result, Zeke knew that he was fighting a losing battle.

So long as he kept going the way he was going.

However, it was a good thing that he had other directions in which he could turn. So, harnessing a trickle of his Will, Zeke once again altered his fighting pattern, going back to his original tactics which were more appropriate to use against large groups. This time, though, his attacks didn’t simply launch the monsters in all directions. Instead, each swing carried with it the power of pure destruction, and the results were predictable.

Because even if Zeke could handle that trickle, it was only because he’d spent untold months inoculating himself against its power. The aviakis clearly had not. Where his hammer passed, devastation followed. Monsters were destroyed, bursting into an explosion of feathers and gore with each swing.

But he knew he couldn’t keep that up, either.

Every second he used his Will pushed him closer to destruction. So, without pausing, he grabbed at the demonic mana that had suffused his domain and shoved it into [Triune Colossus]. Even as his body transformed, becoming sleeker and spikier, strength and speed exploded through his new form. However, he didn’t immediately go on a rampage. Instead, he shoved more mana into [Colossal Army]. The air split into a doorway, and ten golems came marching out. They didn’t hesitate to go on the offensive, trusting their durable forms to shield them against the aviaki attacks.

Suddenly, Zeke was no longer a lone and enduring mountain amidst a tide of monsters. Instead, he was an unrepentant predator – a harbinger of death accompanied by a small army of powerful and relentless automatons.

It was a heady mix, and the shift marked the turning point of the battle. Zeke didn’t care about minimizing the attacks targeting him. Instead, he took them, trusting on his demon-fueled [Cambion’s Awakening] to restore him nearly instantly. At the same time, that skill countered the damage of so much corruption rushing through him. He might’ve made some headway in resisting the demonic mana, but he was still a long way from immunizing himself.

After all, it often took centuries of torture for demons to reach that point. He’d only been using demonic mana for a couple of years. So, by comparison, he was still a novice concerning demonic mana, despite his attunement.

“You’re being a bit hard on yourself. You’re no expert, but part of that is because of your dual nature. If you were full demon, you would be fine.”

Zeke ignored her as he rushed through the aviakis, destroying as many as he could before he was forced to return to his unattuned form. Meanwhile, Talia and the golems wrought havoc on the flock, killing their own fair share as they gradually whittled the flock down.

By the time the damage caused by the corruption started to overwhelm him and Zeke was forced to transform into the unattuned version of [Triune Colossus], he’d begun to think that they were going to win the battle handily. But no sooner had the thought left his mind than a presence washed over the battlefield.

Then came a shadow.

And when Zeke looked up, he saw a bird the size of a cargo jet diving in his direction. He didn’t hesitate to use [Shifing Sands]. Time slowed, and he sank into ground before racing off in a random direction that he hoped would see him clear of the enormous raptor’s diving attack. He burst from the ground a hundred-and-fifty yards away, burying a few straggling aviakis beneath a mound of earth and fire.

But Zeke wasn’t worried about them.

Instead, he only had eyes for the bird, who hit the ground with meteoric force, sending ripples of earth to crash over the aviaki flock like a series of tidal waves. They took to the sky, leaping high into the air in order to avoid the repercussions of the bird’s dive. Zeke, Talia, and the golems had no such ability.

And worse yet, the waves carried with them a shockwave of force that was dangerous, even to Zeke. Even as he tried to keep his balance amongst the roiling earth, the kinetic wave swept through him, leaving behind a wake of agony as Zeke felt like his insides had been scrambled.

As he pushed [Cambion’s Awakening] to its limit in an effort to heal himself, Zeke turned his attention to his golems. And they had fared much worse than he had. All ten were twisted dented and twisted, with their limbs going in all the wrong directions. They couldn’t move, which meant they wouldn’t be of any use as Zeke battled this new foe.

So, as the bird climbed out of the crater of its own making, Zeke stomped his foot, sending a line of destruction in its direction. [Hell Geyser] erupted beneath its talons, bathing the creature in fire and corruption.

But Zeke knew it wasn’t dead.

Because he had already used [Inspect]:

Golden Roc – Level 79

It was as Zeke had suspected since first laying eyes on the monster. It was beyond the first threshold, which meant that it would take everything he could bring to bear if he was going to defeat it. So, he stepped forward, stomping on the ground once again. As soon as one [Hell Geyser] ended, another began.

Fortunately, the aviaki flock had begun to land, and many of them were within the skill’s destructive radius. They didn’t survive, and though Zeke was awash in kill energy, he knew he had quite a fight ahead of him.

So, he used [Hell Geyser] once again. Two more times, he utilized the skill until it went onto cooldown. When the monster climbed out of the waning flames, it was smoking, and many of its feathers were singed. However, aside from one talon looking as if it had been partially melted, the thing was mostly unharmed.

Clearly, it would take a lot more than that if he was going to finish the bird off.

Talia suddenly appeared beside him and asked, “What is the plan?”

Zeke glanced at the pale, undead girl. She had a few small rips in her leather armor, but otherwise, she was entirely unharmed.

“Okay, here’s what we should do…”

She listened as Zeke explained his extremely basic plan, and once he’d finished, she shot off to obey. For his part, Zeke simply stood his ground, aiming a challenging scowl at the bird. He had no idea if it was intelligent enough to understand what was going on – aside from the fact that something had attacked its flock – but it obviously didn’t like the fact that Zeke had survived its diving attack.

So, with a screech, the monster launched itself from the crater, and the battle was engaged.