image [https://imgur.com/8uJ4YUR.jpg]

The demon's body was crackling, on the verge of turning into a large pile of ash. But he still had some fight left in him, even with my devastating hit.

I jumped back to Mella, who appeared to be recovering from her plight of poison from the Tarasque’s breath attack.

“Are you okay, Mella?” I asked, beginning the incantation to cast a healing spell. “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man! I’ll heal you up as fast as I can!”

Healing energy radiated across her body and fixed some of the burn wounds she’d received from the toxic flames. It still looked like she was tired out from the poison effects, so she needed more treatment.

“I’m fine. Don’t worry, Little One.”

She popped the cork off of a vile of pink liquid and downed it all in one go. With a grumble from her stomach accepting the drink, she recovered her energy.

She could use the powers of poison magic, so she should have at least been resistant to the demon's breath attack. But it looked like she took on way more damage then she should have.

“I thought you could use poison magic. Why was that so harsh on you?”

“It is complicated,” she replied. “Merely understand that I’m only half the strength I once was.”

Factors like that were a must know if I wanted to effectively create a strategy. If I was missing any info about either my allies or enemies, I’d really get a nasty surprise sprung on me.

“That’s one issue then…but what about your ability to nullify magic?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as hushed as possible.

“Its attacks have yet to draw upon mana related powers. I cannot bend them to my will.”

If his attack wasn’t using mana, what was powering it? I had to wonder if darkness was capable of creating powers similar to elemental magic.

Speaking of the Tarasque, it looked like The Actor was taking pity on the demon he’d summoned.

“I fear I may have flopped the script, you poor creature. If only my directing skills had been of higher quality, you may have risen stronger.”

The Tarasque encouraged itself by letting out a grumbling sound, then it rose back upwards on its six legs. He was way weaker than when he’d started the fight, so this might be an easy win for us.

But The Actor seemed to carry a remedy for the Tarasque’s weakened state within his pocket.

He pulled out a small golden teardrop looking thing. The shiny skin shimmered, even though very little sunlight hit it due to the stormy clouds.

“Eat, beast of the damned. Take this ripe seed and let it give you the wisdom to rise again! The show must go on!"

The Tarasque eyes peeled on the golden seed. He looked all but enthused to bite into it.

With a flick, The Actor sent it flying up into the air, being caught in the mouth of the Tarasque.

Once it had eaten the whole thing, its eyes turned from red to the same colour gold the seed had been.

“Guh…” Mella grunted, placing a hand over her forehead the moment the Tarasque chomped down on the seed, as if feeling some negative effect echo through the air.

Lead around the roof turned extremely hot orange and melted completely. The molten paste rolled into long tubes and slithered their way to the demon's body, collecting over its skin.

The demon beast started looking like something that had risen out of a volcano, losing much of its previous shape under all that melted metal and appearing more blobby. Over the course of a few seconds, the metal cooled slightly, and bits of gold shine were revealed over most of its skin and shell, especially collecting in the cracks where stardust energy had damaged him.

Despite his shiny new look, the gold was malleable, parts of it still appeared closer to flaming charcoal than metal.

Its two front legs benefit from this malleable gold, inflating a few times bigger and appearing more gorilla-like. It used these newly swollen appendages to leap high up into the air and slam down both its knuckles on the last two of my wasps, destroying them.

The crazed eyes of the golden beast turned on me next. It roared and charged in. The lightning fast speeds stunned me like a deer in headlights. The after images appearing as it galloped further dazzled me with fear and awe.

I couldn’t dodge, taking the full force of its headbutt and flying right off the tower. Before falling to the depths of the island below, I salvaged my freefall by spawning my wing out.

But the now golden demon retracted its body into its shell and blasted off the tower, zipping right at me, striking like a blazing bolt of gilded terror.

Mella desperately offered one of her larger winged animals to come get me before I became a fallen angel meteor. It was some sort of prehistoric creature, with a very long neck and large beak. Perhaps a pterodactyl.

Even after I was clearly out of the fight, the gilded demon showed no signs of easing up, bouncing back and forth between the tower and me. Mercilessly pushing its winning momentum to finish me off.

More of Mella’s winged pterodactyl’s arrived, getting between me and the gilded demon and taking explosive damage as they clashed!

Each ping pong the demon did wasn’t just hurting the pterodactyl’s, but it was also hurting itself. The funky malleable gold was getting misshapen and warped, like it was wax melting from heat.

The winds around the tower were picking up from the storm, creating a draft for the winged dinosaur I was riding to gain speed and glide back up to the top.

I raised up my spear and attempted to jab at the gilded demon to give us a little more leeway while he was heading for us, but something unexpected happened.

The gilded demon's head popped out of its shell and chomped down on my spear!

“Hey!” I shouted, annoyed and freaked out that it just ate half my spear.

Solar energy blasted out from where it bit, brightening up the dark air and pushing the demon away from me, giving me a second to escape. A terrible development was that it didn’t seem bothered by stardust anymore, which meant that weakness was out the window.

“Little One, are you alright?” Mella asked as the pterodactyl landed me on the tower roof.

“None of us will be if we don't stop that thing!”

The gilded demon shot up through the air, crashing down onto the roof of the tower and sending an earthquake level force through the whole island.

Something about it was different since it ate part of my spear. Its body was turning more molten and blobby, but almost like it was taking on a new shape. The only vaguely familiar part was its shell and plentiful amount of legs. Otherwise it looked more like a bull than a lion-turtle-bear thing.

Yellow thunder crackled above, shooting across the dark sky, following the monster's movements. The clouds shimmered for seconds after.

This thing's power increased dramatically. So much that its aura was a frighteningly visible gold colour. The metal floors were feeling the stress of this mighty gilded beast as it prowled toward us.

With a single minded approach, the gilded demon passed through the intense beam of mana, paying no mind to the spirit energy that just disintegrated a chunk of its body. Threads of golden strings quickly repaired the damage, regenerating any major wounds.

“Petite et dabitur vobis!” it shouted in an indiscernible language, layered with voices and cries. “Scientiae boni et mali!”

In the midst of its speaking in tongues, it made so many noises my ears couldn’t even register as actually real. It just came in as very strong treble static.

Mella had to cover her ears. Those noises were hurting her eardrums.

“That voice!” Mella shouted. “By the gods!”

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The creature came charging in again. But I blinked, then he was right behind me!?

My broken spear thrust backward, but it phased through his body.

Wait, was it an after image? He wasn’t actually there anymore, he was next to me!

“Hah!” I jabbed my spear at him, but it phased through another after image.

A frog-like tongue spit out of one of the after image’s mouths, wrapping around my spear and stealing the rest of it away!

“Give that back!” I shouted.

He ate my whole spear! What the heck was up with this thing?

As it consumed the stardust energy, light formed around its skin where molten gold had yet to fully take shape. The gold began to harden, appearing more shiny and polished.

“Is stardust making that thing get stronger?” I said, fearing that we might not have much of a way to beat this thing.

There were a lot of after images all over now, galloping around and causing massive confusion. I couldn’t defend myself with stardust, so I was at its mercy.

Horns appeared on their heads like igneous rock. I prepared for the worst, but when he used them to attack, it would just phase through my body. And when he tried to attack some other way, the same result happened. Seeing those not working, he just ran around like this was a cattle drive.

If his goal was to sow confusion, I sure as heck couldn’t figure out his strategy. Just a bunch of fake and pointless copies of him, swarming around us. There had to be some weird reason he couldn’t attack anymore.

I slipped out through the circling creatures, only to have them re-organize around me again.

Mella wasn’t doing so well in the confusion. She looked frozen with fear, crouched down and using her big hat to cover up her body.

When I approached her, the cattle of golden beasts completely blipped out of existence.

“What the…?”

I turned all around, sensing some great evil still at work here, but not seeing any sort of evidence that it was still present. Did he flee?

Quickly, I ran to Mella and rubbed her shoulder to get her to focus on me.

“Mella! Come on! Try and do something!” Maybe one of her mana attacks might be able to do some damage.

My words caught her ears, and she managed to slightly snap out of her fear long enough to shoot out a mana energy ball.

The attack just flew off into the sky, disappearing out of view.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I’m sorry…” she shook her head. “This thing…whatever it is, it is not of our world. On instinct, I gravely fear it.”

Her spirits were low. I needed to give her a pep talk. There was so much at stake, and we needed every ounce of her strength.

“Melpomene, isn’t it your job to protect the balance of nature?” I said. “I think we can both agree that this falls under that job description. So don’t give up!”

My pep talk raised her spirits a fair amount. She stood up and powered up her body with magical energy from the beam tower.

“You’re right. Forgive me for acting on fear alone. But this beast, it terrifies me.”

“I’m scared too.” I was actually shaking, only holding together with minor amounts of courage in my heart. “So let’s take it as a sign that this thing needs to go. Any ideas?”

The golden beast blipped back into existence, suddenly charging at us. After images parted out of it until a whole line of them were heading for us.

As they rampaged across the tower, they all kicked up dust and caused catastrophic shaking. I had a feeling that when they hit, they’d actually be able to hurt us now.

“Get on!” Mella brought back a pterodactyl and we all took flight on its back. The golden beasts charged right off the edge, but blipped back to the roof like it was using a teleportation power.

“Did you notice what happened when the wall of gilded bull passed through the beam of mana?” Mella asked me.

To be honest, I was way too frightened to pay attention to that at the time. But replaying the memory back in my head showed that the ones rampaging through the mana beam were instantly destroyed, breaching their lines.

It wasn’t the first time we’d seen it damaged by mana energy. So like I theorized, Mella’s magic might have some effect on this thing.

There was one option I had. And Uncle did say I could use it if it was an emergency. I think this counts.

“Mella, distract him while I charge up the mana cannon!” I announced.

Mana was the only thing at this point that had shown it could harm him. We had to give it a try.

“R…right!” She nodded, rallying her mental strength and spawning a big gorilla to challenge the golden creature. “I can only give you so much time, so hurry!”

She landed us on the roof again while her gorilla gave us cover.

My combat efficiency was dead in the water at this point, but I could use what little power I had left to force the mana cannon to start up.

“Mana cannon, coming online!”

Energy crackled around my heart. I felt a tingle shoot down my spine and leave a painful feeling in its wake.

All the mana energy my heart could muster began to pool around my chest, swirling like a galaxy of blue and accreting into a bright central orb.

The golden bull turned to me, possibly detecting my threat. It's body was suddenly glowing as if activating some kind of power. Bubbles of molten energy appeared all over its shell.

BOOM!

The bubbles burst, launching devastating volcanic-like eruptions out. Hot gold spread across the structure and into the water below.

Part of the eruption headed toward Mella and I, but we managed to get out of the way. I had to pause the charging sequence for my cannon, which made me feel incredibly sick and sore.

The molten gold quickly solidified, then swished around as if alive. With a cry from the golden bull, arms reached out from the shimmering pools to attack us.

I froze. Something about them seemed all too familiar…

Mella spawned a spider-like creature that quickly challenged those many arms, tangling them up in silk and giving me time to regain my focus to continue charging the cannon.

My spirit wasn’t keeping up with the mana demand, since I was exhausted. So the cannon couldn’t power up to full strength. It was made worse by me interrupting the sequence to jump out of the way.

“Crud…this isn’t good!”

Mella, noticing this, stretched out one of her hands toward the tower’s mana beam and routed a fraction of the energy into my heart. The drawback was that she was losing focus on the spirit gorilla, so it was weaker.

With this mana she’d given me, the shot was going to be super powerful, more than compensating for my lack of energy. My head was calculating how to fire it without causing mass destruction to the planet's atmosphere.

Massive targeting reticles materialized in front of me, lining up on the creature and preparing to focus the energy. I only had one shot. If I missed, we were doomed.

The battle between the spirit gorilla and the golden monster continued. The ape showed no signs of fear, pouding at its chest and letting out a fierce battle cry, signaling he would protect us no matter what. But as the fight drew on, the gilded monster seemed to become more solid, also gaining more strength.

Mella continued to concentrate on her spirit animals, who were trying to hold the golden bull and those arms down, while also focusing on safely flowing mana into me. It seemed like she was going to enhance the cannon so it wouldn’t harm me too much. The strain was creating too much stress on her spirit!

“Hang in there!” I shouted to her over the cry of the mana cannon charging.

As much as the ape tried to hold the gold monster in place, it was overwhelmed, getting rammed around by bull-like horns.

I had to think of something to keep the golden bull steady long enough to get a shot off on him.

"Little One! Use stardust!"

Knowing what she was getting at, I spawned a shard of stardust out of my hand. If this thing wanted to eat stardust, it might be distracted by it too.

"Sam…Samael…" I struggled out my words, getting my snake's attention, "take this stardust over there, and get out of the way of the cannon…"

"Ss…" he hissed, doing as I told him.

The gold bull quickly chased Samael holding the shard. Once Samael spit it out of his mouth, the golden bull settled down and chomped on the crystal. Samael quickly slithered over to Mella, who kept him safe under her witch hat.

Nothing could tear away the focus that the golden beast had on eating that crystal, which meant it didn't even see its own death coming.

The targeting reticles locked in place. No matter where the gold bull went now, I'd track him. The firing sequence initiated, and the energy over my heart fully formed into a ball of light.

“Mana cannon fully charged!”

The light quickly enveloped my tiny body. I was just pure energy at this point. More energy than any civilization would ever need in a lifetime.

When this thing fires, it won’t burn me out, will it? I guess that’s a risk I had to take.

“Firing in…”

“3”

“2”

“1”

“Firing cannon!”

BWOOOOV!!

Blue light blasted out of my heart, warping the air with a lensing effect. It wasn’t just a cannon anymore, it was an astrophysical jet! That power easily swallowed up the golden bull, taking a chunk of the tower roof with it.

The energy blast shot across the sky, vaporizing the clouds completely, vanishing off into the great blue horizon. It was such a powerful beam, that even the mana stream of the tower was disrupted by it.

All of the world could have seen it streak across the sky. At least, anyone on this part of it.

The beam had to shoot off planet, or it would have devastated any number of ecosystems. I just let it keep going until I ran out of power to feed this monstrous laser.

After a few moments, the cannon finally started to slow until all the energy was expended. My body went into emergency cooldown mode. Hexagon plates on my skin lifted up and vented the heat from my body.

My circuits would fry out if I didn't cut power to them. Everything was going dark. This cooldown mode was very uncomfortable, but that discomfort quickly faded as I shut down completely.

How long till I wake up again?

Hours? Days…? We…e…ks?

-Hibernation mode activating. All cognitive functions temporarily shutting down-

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image [https://imgur.com/nGmRl0g.jpg]

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