The light faded to a murky twilight in short order. Bubbles trailed in their wake as they shot toward the Lake bottom. Neither of them was buoyant, but only one had to breathe. Tristan tried to let go once he realized what the Lord of the Underworld intended. He would not allow himself to die meaninglessly.
The Lord of the Underworld smirked, “Do you think I would let you go that easily?”
Its hand now held tightly to his chest plate, and was dragging him down into the depths. Tristan tried to strike with Vulcan, but the water blunted his strikes to near impotence. He paused, Tristan needed to reset his mindset. Fighting underwater was possible, he guessed he could do it for fifteen or so minutes. The Lord of the Underworld could do it forever, which was a problem, but it was a fifteen minutes from now problem.
Tristan went over his options for doing damage. He had decay. The elemental lord was non-organic. He had Vulcan. The Lord of the Underworld was familiar with his prior commander, there was no way Tristan would be granted the time to charge any of those abilities. He stretched out his metal sense hoping to pick something, anything up.
He succeeded. To his senses, the floor or the lake was packed with metal. Not just tower steel, but a copper vein also ran through this area. It looked green to his eyes, but it was copper. There were other, smaller traces of metal. Some even had forces. Most were shards loaded with absorption, but once he hit the lake floor he also picked up a spot of corrosion not far away. He also picked up a small spot of adamance, it was almost hidden by the much larger presence given off by his armor.
Tristan had a weapon. With the Lord of the Underworld holding him down as if Tristan would simply wait and suffocate, he drew his knife and shoved it into the elementals chest. The weapon was tier five, but that was only in terms of hardness, it relied on geometry to cut. Unfortunately, essence was a method of bending physics.
Half the blade sank into its chest. The Lord of the Underworld recoiled, the knife had sunk in around five inches, enough to have damaged the organ sack. It would heal, eventually, but it was the first serious blow the elemental had taken. Tristan lunged to take advantage of the presented opportunity.
Water resistance slowed him down dramatically. The Lord of the Underworld was under a similar restriction, but it had enough raw strength to power through the resistance. To Tristan, it felt like he was back in the Forest Caldera fighting Henry. The ex-civil protector was so much faster and stronger, with better armor, and Tristan’s only real advantage was his weapons. Only this time his weapons would not wantonly slice off body parts.
Tristan went in for a stab at the arm holding him. If he could saw the appendage off, then he would be able to let Luke finish the wounded undead off. The Lord of the Underworld jerked its arm back, then kicked Tristan in the chest. On the surface that resulted in a stumble, down here it picked him up off the lake floor. It was a small issue that entirely negated his mobility. At least he managed to run his knife along the Lord of the Underworld’s leg.
“I do not know what motivates you, but you live for little and you shall die for little.” The Lord of the Underworld raised its palm and copper peeled out of the lake floor, “Give over the artifact and I will let you live.”
Tristan couldn’t respond, being underwater. He did not consider it, not truly. Tristan was not familiar with what treason meant in this undead’s mind, but the head family had something similar. Shadow Fist had a tattoo claiming him as part of the head family, if he ever betrayed the head family he would be put to death. There were no exemptions and the blood related family members would suffer similar consequences, though circumstances could lessen the punishment to exile for them.
That all meant that handing over his tier fifteen soul tool would be the same as committing suicide. He had no evidence, but he would bet that if an owner of a soul weapon died while it was in the primordial realm, it would be lost forever. That would mean, that until he summoned Vulcan, this undead could not kill him.
Tristan folded his arms and smirked at the Lord of the Underworld. It gritted its teeth, “Fine then.”
With a wave of its hand, it summoned the cloud of copper it had torn out of the ground. It pointed at Tristan, commanding the shards of metal to swarm over Tristan. The half light at their depth was completely blotted out by a storm of copper. Tristan was slammed down into the lakebed once more. Despite the small size of the copper shrapnel, it felt like he had been hit by a massive hammer.
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It was surprisingly comfortable. The adamant armor held up admirably. Until a crack ran through it. The feeling of a schism running down his breastplate was jarring. Tristan frantically searched for the cause, and when he discovered it he was shocked. He remembered being surprised that Vulcan’s essence recovery rate was so slow.
That ocean of essence was emptying at a startling rate. He had collapsed the Forest Caldera at the beginning of the week and a few days later he had not stopped using Vulcan’s reserves. Even an ocean could be emptied if the leak was large enough. The crack expanded, and Tristan felt the first inkling of fear that he might not be able to shelter behind the plate of invincible metal.
“Surrender, you are coming to the end of your strength,” The Lord of the Underworld taunted.
Tristan did his best to ignore the provocations as the copper storm pushed him through the mud like a plow through a field. He was helpless. There was too little friction to resist, he could not strike back, not against the small shards. He attempted to find something, anything to latch onto. There were hundreds of tons of tower steel, but while it had the requisite sturdiness, it lacked a form to be useable. Then he felt that spot of corruption.
It was too far away. Tristan wanted to scream at the unfortunate situation, but that would just waste valuable air. A shockwave traveled through the copper swarm. They lost tension and started drifting to the floor. Several hard cracks sounded through the depths, and Tristan struggled to rise. He blinked away shock at the two people who arrived.
Luke was expected, but Kerri was a shock. On land, Kerri was little more than fodder to the Lord of the Underworld. In the depths, they were much more closely matched. Not even, but it was enough for Luke to make up the difference.
Tristan felt cold, and shards of metal dug into his joints and his chest. He limped towards the one thing in the area that might save them. Ten seconds later he was standing over a wooden capsule the size of his hand. Hadrid may be dead, but he would have the last laugh. Reaching down Tristan grasped the capsule. The waterlogged wood cracked under his grip, but nothing leaked out.
Who would have thought? A silver devil saved the caldera. Tristan started running at the fight. Blood tainted the water from the many wounds Luke had taken. Kerri was starting to accrue some as well, and despite him handling the small fry, he was showing more signs of fatigue than Luke.
Tristan felt slow as he rushed through the water towards them. Any second the Lord of the Underworld could turn and see him approaching. He arrived and threw a punch holding the capsule. The Lord of the Underworld smirked as he casually blocked it. Tristan crushed the capsule, releasing a silver blob into the water right in front of the elemental lord's face.
The Lord of the Underworld’s eyes widened. With surprising speed, it bent backward to let the gallium’s momentum carry it over its head. Luke realized what was at stake. Tristan was not clear on what his friend did, but the metal sparked before exploding in a cloud of droplets.
Tristan was sure that would be the finishing blow, but copper shards fit together as a shield. All the gallium that had been redirected was used up corroding the shield to a brittle powder. Kerri charged in stabbing his tier three artifact sword through the cloud that had dispersed away from the elemental lord. It punched through the brittle shield and into the undead’s eye socket.
The Lord of the Underworld screamed at the gallium coated blade in its eye and punched the side of Kerri’s sword. He could not keep his grip, and the sword snapped, leaving a six-inch length in the elemental lord’s eye socket. Tristan had hoped that the creature would just die. That did not seem to be the case. It staggered back and forth flailing its arms wildly.
“You can’t kill me, I’m eternal,” The elemental sounded desperate to Tristan.
The Lord of the Underworld staggered toward Tristan, its one silver eye glaring at him. That eye was turning milky and tarnished, but a wounded and almost dead Lord of the Underworld was more than Tristan’s match. However, if he could do enough damage, the others could survive.
He met the Lord of the Underworld with his knife in hand. Tristan thrust his blade and was shocked when it connected. A hand closed around his neck and picked him up.
“Give me the artifact or you die!” The Lord of the Underworld screeched.
Could a flood of essence wash away the damage the corrupted gallium did? It was logical, Vulcan himself was diluting a poison to obsolescence at this very moment. Tristan also knew the Lord of the Underworld would kill him out of spite. Now that there was a time limit for both of them, Tristan reinforced his neck as much as possible and glared back at the undead. The hand squeezed.
Tristan tried to last, tried to have the last laugh. In the end, he could only opt for mutual destruction. At the last moment as his kern started collapsing, a hand in a black and navy blue glove pulled the knife out of the Lord of the Underworld’s chest. Its eye flickered down, but with only one arm it was not fast enough to respond to Kerri while underwater. Kerri stabbed it in the heart.
The last thing Tristan saw before losing consciousness was the light fading from the Lord of the Underworld’s eyes and black smoke as his kern dissipated into dark essence.
The last thing he heard was, “I Kerri, am the savior of the Caldera!”