We rode another six days until we met our target, and the circumstances had changed a lot from our last encounter.
When previously he was the size of a house, he looked more like a fortress of pure rock.
It made me a little sad to see the priest in this twisted version, his lumbering form allowing for incredibly slow movement, even as he fixed his gaze on the distant mountain range.
On his towering form of ever shifting boulders, weapons and bones occasionally appeared, and as we looked upon him, we knew it was time to strike.
We approached the bastard carefully, preparing our strongest spells appropriate for this encounter, Hannibal and Pale charged when our spells were ready, leaving me to fire my orbliteration and Ember to unleash a twisting and concentrating ball of fire.
It was glorious to behold, the nova and my bullet touching it at the same time, both hitting pretty close to one another and evaporating an extremely large part of rock, before both our spells extinguished each other and turned to steam. Steam that obscured our friends motion as Hannibal charged head first into the crack, something breaking inside as he began running away.
The last thing that happened in our surprise attack was for Pale to begin climbing the titan.
Finally, it managed to turn around, and while at first it didn’t look too agitated, we had only minimally damaged it, its slight annoyance manifested in taking its arm and throwing the appendage towards us, both ember and I barely dodged thanks to me casting evade on it, but many of the zombies behind us were immediately turned into paste, the others deciding to walk towards the south instead of following me further.
As an earthquake like sound reverberated behind us, I suddenly saw the hand grow in size and dig into the ground, forcing Ember to take care of it while I focused on opening opportunities for my companions.
Slowly, I simply cast consume area, the ground beneath the titan becoming swampy, forcing it to spend some of its power to harden it again, opposing my power and slowing down further.
Immediately I send force projectile and eldritch lance at it, further distracting it and allowing Hannibal to charge a second time while Pale continued to climb.
Then, it threw a boulder at my familiar, the titanic rock hurling towards him, only to bounce off of the pigs skin. My arcane gaze showed the way his organs were damaged, only for them to regenerate slowly, still, it was enough to stop his charge, and forced Hannibal to try again. He could tank one more hit of this strength before he would have to retreat for a while and regenerate, his strength the biggest factor and our trump card.
My focus on this mystic sense however informed me of a pulsing beacon of corrupted radiant power within the titan, informing me of what I assumed to be the priests remains.
A burst of heat behind me reminded me of embers constant struggle against the hand, though he was probably winning, if I had to guess, pyro always bringing things into motion that shouldn’t move.
I continued my assault, distracting and annoying the titan as Pale reached his head, where she was faced by a different challenge.
The ground beneath her began growing spikes or disappearing right below her feet, the endless attacks not stopping until she somersaulted on top of the carving that made up the rune, at which point our enemy decided to respond more directly and enlarged his fist, trying to smash her into a fine paste, only for the assassin to dodge the house sized limb, weaving between cracks to stand on top as the hand impacted on its forehead, slightly disturbing the rune.
Witnessing this, a plan formed, and as pale was forced to dismount, and Ember dealt with his opponent, we gathered around it.
“Ember, we need to distract it and give Pale another opportunity to attack, when she got two more of these attacks in, we will attack the core again.” When everyone agreed, it became a much harder fight.
Our opponent was awake now, his body filled with spikes and his hands shooting rock projectiles for me and Ember to dispose of as Pale attempted to climb the beast, using some of the spikes as support while outmaneuvering any sudden counterattacks or friendly fire.
It was glorious to watch her ascend, the struggle seeming almost easy as she weaved between physical and shadow form, five spikes hitting her at once in a second she used to dematerialize.
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Then, I struck with my restraint and freeze spells, both shattering within the second, but giving her the opportunity to begin an attack on the rune, working it with a dagger used as a chisel and a small hammer, before she dodged the fist once more.
As she continued to fight the top of the titan, both embers eternal flame barrage and my consistently held up consuming ground finally managed to hurt it, slowly beginning to outpace its regeneration as the rune stopped working.
The fist came down towards the ground, freezing everything within the circle and raising a maw of stone from the ground below.
As earth and air rippled, and we knew it was the attack we had been warned of.
A meow drew everyone's attention, the attack that would have taken defeat from the jaws of victory stopped, and instead followed by an ungodly barrage of stones towards Nemo.
“No! You can’t!” I screamed, feeling the grief of a hundred lifetimes set in.
In the split second, I saw loved ones pass away that I had never known, people failing to save their parents or kids, best friends sacrificed by their very own minions, all perfectly avoidable, just like this one.
I had known that this was possible, but rejected the opportunity for its consequences, the chance of fucking up again like I did to create this situation.
It was then that I unleashed everything I had, quickly forming a spell I knew would feed on more than just life force.
I had to use a tier of magic I had tried to disregard for too long, waiting for some type of emergency to make it necessary, and this was it.
I reached inside myself and grabbed four runes, placing them without much thought, a constellation I had theorized but hadn’t dared testing.
Tier 2 Spells 2/4
Arcana
Spell
Description
Spatium
Penetrate (Dim dispel of the closed dispel)
Disturbs the space around a target and makes it easier to hit. Any attacks have a higher chance of penetrating armor.
Spatium
(Corrupt decay area mirror)
My soul burned, and I would pass out right after casting, but at least I saw the consequences of my actions unfold as I fell over in pain.
Space rippled between Nemo and the titan, and everything that went in came out shifting in the weirdest of ways, before hitting the ground like rotten tomatoes, creating sizzling slime.
After a few more tries, the other realized that anything going into this area was reflected and turned into a twisted version, with Ember using it to send a ball of purple fire at our enemy that actually managed to burn the titan enough for Pale to climb it once more, a hit from Hannibal forcing its head into the mirror. Most of this last part is gathered from my allies, as I was gone by this point, barely conscious enough to drag myself to my dying enemy.
“I am sorry it had to come to this, you were supposed to die much sooner.” This was followed by its corrupted divinity being dragged towards the heavens once more, and me laying in the rubble.
It was the end of my biggest adventure yet, my own body burning as I decided what to name the spell.
Tier 2 Spells 2/4
Arcana
Spell
Description
Spatium
Penetrate (Dim dispel of the closed dispel)
Disturbs the space around a target and makes it easier to hit. Any attacks have a higher chance of penetrating armor.
Spatium
Wall of faith (Corrupt decay area mirror)
Erect a wall that changes everything touching it, sending it back with the same force it impacted the wall.
My friends later told me that I had actually smiled once this was done, and from the silence within me, I knew that the victims of my failures would have forgiven me at this point.
I slept peacefully, memories rushing through me and settling on ways to tell this story even as I write it into my system notes.
All I knew was the bitter taste of dealing with my problems by relying on others.