Jonathan groaned as he fell, and rolled to his feet, wincing as his bones shuddered against one another. As they started to snap back into place, he felt the last drops of his Divinity starting to run out. The real battle was beginning now. The shadowy titan broke off from the other bosses, its eyes set on him. Some of the other monsters were more interested in Edgar, annoyed by the floating pest barraging them with a constant stream of elemental attacks. Jonathan charged towards the incoming monster, gathering up power within his body as he went. As the behemoth of darkness raised its sword, ready to slice him in half, he sent his stamina into his legs, dashing past the strike. The blade came down, shattering the floor, but Jonathan ignored it.
He jumped as he neared the monster, and rocketed up towards its face, taking advantage of its extended stance. As it tried to drag the sword back up, Jonathan drove both fists into its jaw. Something bent within the energy matrix that made up the monster, and it stumbled backwards. A questing tendril of webbing came shooting towards him from the spider boss. It seemed that he would not be simply left to his own devices. As the webbing came hurtling in, he sent out a Void Cannon towards the attack, blasting it out of the way. The webbing shot past him, and into the shadow monster’s head. The attack seemed to be coated in some sort of energy, as it damaged the monster, tearing through its dark form.
The monster fell to one knee, and Jonathan nailed it in the face with a duo of Void Cannon skills that he sent from both hands at once. As he touched the ground, the monster breathed its last as a thunderous detonation of purple light blasted its head apart.
Essence poured into Jonathan, sending him up a level. As the small portion of power from the level up entered him, he smiled grimly. Time would tell if it was enough.
The crystalline snake slithered towards him, creating a tinkling noise as its body touched the cave floor. Despite its fragile appearance, it was anything but, and it ground down the floor beneath it with ease. Jonathan stood his ground and looked over the monster for weak points as it came slithering in. Unfortunately, he could not find any. It was made entirely out of crystal. Even worse, three more of the bosses were heading his way, and if they all attacked in unison, he would be hard pressed to survive. Instead, he started running, searching for a way out of his predicament.
The answer came to him in the form of a large trench that ran through the cavern, bisecting it neatly. It was so deep that he could barely see the bottom, but it was only about twenty feet wide. Jonathan raced towards it and hopped over the gap, landing on the other side.
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As the gaping abyss yawned open in front of him, he watched as the bosses came barreling towards him, without a care in the world. The serpent reached the canyon first and shot its body forwards with a bunching of its coils, shooting across the hole in the ground. Jonathan leaped up and came crashing down, slamming his elbow into the middle of the snake’s back.
A blast wave of Void energy provided an extra kick to his attack. The monster almost bent in half, and it struggled to find purchase on the slick canyon walls. With another elbow slam, Jonathan knocked the monster into the trench. There was nothing for it to grab onto, and it simply slid into the abyss, quickly fading out of sight. As the three other monsters neared, they skidded to a halt, having witnessed what had happened to their compatriot. They weren’t sapient, but they were still intelligent enough to recognize a trap when they saw it.
One of them, a large gorilla-like monster, picked up a boulder from the ground and hefted it at Jonathan, propelling it at supersonic speeds. He dodged with ease and watched as the monster hooted angrily at its failure. If he could bait the creatures into attacking him, he would be able to strike more effectively. He watched with a slight grin on his face as the monsters howled in rage, trying to make their tiny brains think of something that they could do. Normally they would simply have leaped over the canyon, but Jonathan was more than powerful enough to send them plummeting to their demise. Eventually, one of them worked up the courage, or rather the stupidity, to attack.
The gorilla monster bounded towards the canyon, and leaped, soaring over the gulf. Jonathan leaped up to meet it, keeping within its effective attack range. It beat ineffectively at its torso as he rocketed upwards, and when his punch landed, it was too late. The attack blasted the monster backwards, and another punch sent it flying down into the canyon. However, this time, the monster grabbed onto the side of the trench. It hooted in rage and began to haul itself out.
Jonathan had different ideas. He came down like a meteor and drove his fist into the center of the monster’s hand, shattering its bones in an instant. It released the canyon side and plummeted to its doom. It was a pity that this method of killing the monsters did not produce any essence, but there was no way that he could win a slugfest against multiple peak Tier 2 bosses at the same time. The fact that he could even beat one was astounding.
The remaining two monsters, a massive, flightless bird with teeth lining its beak, and an oozing monstrosity of slime, were frozen in place, watching him. They seemed reluctant to engage, and instead turned tail and headed back towards the main conflict. Jonathan watched as they left, and checked on Edgar. The man was holding his own, but he hadn’t actually killed any of the monsters yet. He merely was holding them at bay, as none of them could actually catch him.