“This suuucks,” I complained aloud, though I couldn’t hear my own voice, “I’m so damn tired.” With my griping out of the way, I pulled myself to my feet. I had been thrown, beaten, smashed, harassed, walloped, whacked, beset upon and altogether thoroughly assaulted since I set foot on this mountain. Now, it was even cheating.
This is nuts, I decided. The month I had spent in Badaila was transformative for me, but I wasn’t the only one who had gained a lot from the time. Both of these creatures felt like they were the very peak of strength for a Grade One, each of them capable of matching my own pressure. The Golem made sense, but no way was the bird meant to be here.
They were both impressive to look at, I conceded. The Golem Prince was taller than a two storey house, and its rock armour reflected both the sunlight and the light from the false phoenix in a way which felt intentional to aim glare at me. The inner rock had a pinkish hue while the outer was darker red with an evil crimson sheen. Within its helmet, that doubled as a crown, were two glowing orbs of purple to complete the evil overlord look. Its ornately spiked head was easily over ten metres higher than mine.
Above even that lofty head hovered the Firehawk Monarch in its own supposed glory. In my imaginations, I would have guessed a phoenix to look a bit like a peacock, its long feathers made of flame trailing behind it as it flies. A thing of beauty. To my dismay, the volcanic bird of prey sitting comfortably on an updraft was a consummate predator.
Not for the first time, I felt the aura of a standoff come over the scene. The deafening scream of the Firehawk Monarch was my first hurdle to overcome, but not a simple one. The fact it hadn’t unleashed its cry already made me think there was a cooldown, or maybe I was just hoping. Either way, the battle began at the bird’s behest.
A conflagration of flaming arrows dropped from above while spikes shot up from the floor. The entire sky was turned into an inferno. With the raging Dao in the air, both fire and earth overwhelming, controlling enough air to fly was out of the question. Trying to match the power from above with Mana Bolts and coating myself with the densest layers of air I could manage. I had to grit my teeth at the physicality of the fiery spears as they pushed me down.
Landing, there was a moment of calm as all three of us seemed to get the measure of each other. They may have teamed up for the moment, but I doubted the claimant beasts would remain allies if they got rid of me. My eyes widened. They’re trying to hold back, I realised.
“Nope.” I would now allow that, and the still dormant Dao of the Dragon vigorously agreed. That was an insult. The monsters were already marked for death, but now it was personal. I dumped a hefty portion of my mana pool into one arm, and matched the process in the other. Electric sparks danced around my arms as the power gathered in each hand.
Harmony Of The Storm had seen less use in my recent battles due to a few reasons. For most fights, it was simply unnecessary to transform my mana into a more volatile version. There was a slight loss in efficiency that I had begun to avoid, but I wasn’t concerned with that now. By using the Dao of Tempests, the excited and hard to control power of Storm Mana was like a willing and loyal subject. I had avoided its use most recently because the rock elementals were resistant to most aspects contained within the Storm Mana.
Another barrage of flaming arrows appeared in the air but I was quicker. Harmony Of The Storm. Blast. Blast. I threw my arms back and forth, using the two wide beams of arcane and electric power to smash the Firehawk’s attacks to smithereens. It abandoned its magic as I turned those beams toward itself. Slow to react, the Golem finally interrupted me with a stamp that threw me skyward, a pillar of stone jutting up from my position.
I cartwheeled through the air and the Firehawk tried to take advantage. It saw me enter its domain and thought I would be an easy target. However, the sky is not the property of the bird which dwells within its expanse. The sky belongs to the tempest. Bad-dump. My heart flew as my Dao now took centre stage, my deep understanding of the Tempest becoming more solidified. The Dao Pool was close to evolving.
The huge wings of the Firehawk beat heavily once, enough to launch it straight at me, talons bared. The heat from the creature was most concentrated there. No good would come from being grabbed in those molten claws. Thinking I was without options, the opportunistic hunter tried to clutch me.
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Tempest Form. Air Manipulation.
The weighty physicality of Tempest Form made me more like a storm elemental than an actual bolt of lightning. However, my dexterity increased manifold and I no longer needed to keep my traditional shape. I shifted and zipped out of the Firehawk’s grasping talons, falling to the ground. I dropped the transformation with a forward spin, gathering momentum to smash the Alternating Armament’s current hammer flail form into the mouth of the waiting Golem Prince below.
My mana went haywire as the sonic attack hit me unawares. Coming off cooldown, the cataclysmic sound pierced every defence I had, leaving me open to the annoyingly telegraphed haymaker from the Golem. A bloody spray covered its rocky gauntlet at the impact and I was thrown back into the air. More stunned than before, I was an easy target for the strafing Firehawk Monarch. The leather of my coat melted onto my arms before I could use Tempest Form to escape its clutches. I tumbled to the ground in a smoking heap, rolling and throwing myself to my feet.
My vision still swam but I had made my decision. The choice had been there, but I hoped I wouldn’t need to use it. If I don’t get a level up from this fight, it’s going to be really annoying to walk around deaf. Knowing my mind, the Alternating Armament becomes a glove with a needle. Quick stab to puncture the eardrums. “ARGH,” I barely heard myself to begin with, but hearing in mono was disorientating in itself. Putting the sides of my hands together, the armament swapped hands and I repeated the process.
Now I was truly deafened, which wasn’t great, but it was better than being murdered by the screech of a stupid overgrown pigeon. Now able to walk straight at least, it didn’t make things easier but I quickly adapted. That’d be System hardened Fortitude and Mental getting to work, which I appreciated. I was less grateful that the ground I landed on now felt like wet cement. I could swear the Golem chuckled as I landed in the goop, but of course I couldn’t hear to know for sure.
My saving grace was the lack of teamwork between the two. The bird was furious I had escaped its grip and dove down to pluck me from the ground. It was near the peak of Grade One, but a monster’s intelligence stayed the same until it evolved. The hawk might have some ability to strategize, but there’s a reason birdbrain was a common insult. I steeled my resolve and stared down the now-silently screaming enemy.
A well-timed Blast to the top of the head sent the bird face first into the wet stone. A pair of Mana Bolts released my feet and my next stamp contained enough force to send me forward, right onto the bird’s back. My skin sizzled angrily, but pain was nothing to me at the moment. So many bones were demanding attention that I had shut that part of the brain up long ago.
Glad that I didn’t need to breath so much, I shifted the Alternating Armament into a hookblade I had seen in a video game. Applying it to the bird’s wing worked brutally well. From the way the air around me visibly shivered, I knew deafening myself was the right choice. The bird’s attacks should have demolished my eardrums instantly, but some property allowed the damage to be done, while letting me hear the next squawk, too.
Hooked into its shoulder, I drew my hand back, filling my fist with all the fury of a thunderstorm. “One down,” I told myself. My muted voice felt strange, but not as strange as this would. My hand fell onto the skull of the Firehawk Monarch. I didn’t immediately receive energy for the kill, so I gathered the power once more, but lost control as we began a nosedive.
To my immense gratitude, we were falling right towards the peak of the mountain and the Golem Prince I still wanted to finish off. I was so grateful not to be missing the mountain, I didn’t think about why it would aim there. I shifted the hookblade into a staff and threw myself from the back of the fallen avian king to lessen the impact, but we both slammed into the plateau atop the mountain.
Okay, now this is my least favourite plateau in the world. Ignoring pain is one thing, but bones broke with that final collision and moving was difficult. I decided to quickly finish off the Firehawk Monarch. Please don’t be phoenix rules. There was a suspicious looking blaze where I had hit the bird’s head with my hand. A hand I know saw was mangled as I raised it for one final Blast. Dropping it, letting the mana move to my other arm, I didn’t have time to realise my mistake until too late.
With all the irony in the world, a birdcage made of solid stone began to constrict around me. I attempted to use Tempest Form but the Golem Prince was controlling the Dao and mana between the gaps, making it impossible. Earth just trumped storms in certain ways, and escaping was one of them. I began to hyperventilate, lack of need be damned. My throat scorched due to proximity with the Firehawk Monarch.
Claustrophobia reared. I was going to be crushed. I barely had time to swing my hammer twice before the walls got too close. I struggled. Oh, how I struggled. I fired off Blast after Blast but any damage to the cage was immediately repaired by the Golem. Within seconds, the Golem had trapped me. I was at its mercy, and being crushed to death. To add insult to injury, the heat rose as the Firehawk did the same. Not content to bury me in a coffin, they had to turn it into a furnace.
I raged and fought but darkness began to encroach on my vision. A welcoming darkness. A darkness which I faded into slowly. My fingers brushed against the Dao of the Dragon it pulled away. I nodded, accepting the magic’s decision. I had made my choice. Now I had to live with the consequences.
Which meant dying.