As the shield crumbled before the skill, Jonathan struck, sending a fist coated in the densest elemental power that he could muster straight into the center of his Void’s Grasp skill. There was a shattering noise, and the shield broke. Both Jonathan and what remained of the energy contained within his skill flew towards Granath, who was too slow to dodge.
His fist connected as the tiny black hole struck the worm’s head, slamming him backwards. Jonathan felt bones crack beneath the force of his blow, and flesh tore from the gravity of the black hole. Granath reeled from the strike, blood running down his face. As he did so, a pulse of elemental power erupted from his body, blasting Jonathan backwards with a wave of pure heat.
Jonathan’s skin crisped as the broiling heat scorched his skin. However, he powered through, summoning the Void to his skin. As the air was consumed, the heat disappeared, leaving him with a few burns, but nothing life threatening. He flipped through the air, landing feet first on the shattered ground. With a snarl, he reversed his direction, flying up towards Granath once more.
Silvery soul energy swirled around the worm as he floated midair, a large chunk of his flesh missing. One of the souls dove into his face, healing the damage to some extent. Jonathan could tell that it was only temporary though.
He streaked upwards, a trail of dark power following his fist. Compared to the titanic worm, he was little more than an ant. However, he was an ant with the power of a demigod. Granath sent a flurry of elemental attacks downwards, cutting through Jonathan’s skin. He pushed past the pain, and drove his fist into his foe once more. While Granath specialized in wide ranging area of effect attacks, Jonathan was a duelist first and foremost, and his skills worked best in a one on one conflict.
His fist slammed into the worm once more, sending a detonation of purple energy outwards. In the brief moment that his fist connected, he tugged upon Maw of the Void, concentrating the skill’s power down into a tiny beam. Contingency skills and shields triggered around Granath, but it didn’t matter. A pencil thin beam of darkness erupted forth, widening as it pierced through the worm’s body. The hole at the front was tiny, but it exploded outwards at the back, blasting away a massive chunk of pale flesh.
The worm screamed in rage and pain, and he raised one arm. Spirits rushed towards it, and a sword of silver light formed in Granath’s hand. He swept it downwards, and an arc of power shot towards Jonathan, too fast for him to dodge. He summoned a shield of the Void, but it barely made a difference. The attack sliced through his front, nearly bisecting him. Blood erupted outwards in a crimson torrent, and Jonathan fell from the sky. Luckily, thin slices were the easiest to regenerate, as they were surrounded by flesh on all sides. The bleeding stopped soon after, and Jonathan was back in fighting condition.
His organs and insides were still battered, and moving sent spikes of pain through him, but he could still fight. If it had been a few inches deeper, he would have been cut clean in half. That would certainly have killed him.
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Jonathan clenched his fists and stared up at Granath, as the worm used his souls to heal himself. However, Jonathan spotted something strange. The flesh that was repaired by the souls looked even more pallid than the rest of the worm, sickly even. It seemed that there was some sort of limit to how much the worm could heal.
Jonathan raced across the shattered ground, heading for a mostly intact building. He clambered up it in the blink of an eye, and leaped. Granath howled in rage and the sky above him darkened as he thrust his hands up. A moment later, Jonathan realized what he was looking at. A meteor had appeared in the sky, streaking down towards him. It was easily a hundred feet wide, and it pulsed with pure elemental energy. Before Jonathan could do anything, as he was midair, Granath summoned a massive shield around the area, leaving a hole for the meteor to come in. It descended far faster than gravity alone would have dictated, and before Jonathan could even reach Graanth, it had entered the shield. The heat of the meteor was intense, suffused as it was with pure fire. Jonathan crossed his arms, and sent a blastwave of the Void out of himself, trying to redirect the meteor.
It was too little too late, and the rock crashed into his arms, breaking them in an instant. He was driven into the ground, the force pulverizing his flesh and bones. The meteor exploded a moment later, razing the ground in every direction. Jonathan lay there, too weak to even move. His only consolation was that Granath was also injured. A crater was dug a hundred feet into the ground, and Jonathan was at its very center.
He coughed up scorched blood as he lay there, his body pulsating with pain. Granath lay on the ground a few hundred feet away, his massive form scorched and broken. However, his army of souls patched him up as time went on, restoring his flesh to health. The worm had gambled on that attack, and it had paid off. Jonathan could tell that the worm would recover before he did. There was only one way that he could get back into fighting shape, but it could kill him in the process.
With a grunt, he used his Void energy to slice into his skin, temporarily bypassing his elemental immunity with his will. To be honest, he hadn’t even been sure if it would work. Luckily, it did. He carved the rune for the Rune of Physicality into his body, and charged it with Divinity. Immediately, he felt strength surge within himself, and his muscles briefly became strong enough to work without his bones. He rose to his feet, one of the most painful things he had ever done, and began staggering towards Granath.
The worm stared at him in disbelief as his skin knitted back together. He desperately tried to increase his intake rate of souls, but he had already hit the limit. Jonathan’s eyes burned with purple fire as his rune started to drain his vitality to keep him moving. As intense pain wracked his mind and body, he remembered his purpose in this realm. He started to speak as he walked.
“You can break my body. You can shatter my bones and rend my flesh, but you can never break my will. For I am the Hellbreaker, and you are nothing but an obstacle.”
Jonathan’s voice remained strong as he said this, and the purple light in his eyes rose to a blinding intensity. Granath writhed on the ground, and loosed a multitude of elemental attacks at Jonathan, the projectiles scorching through the air. Many of them hit him, tearing through his skin and punching holes in his body. He ignored them.
A few seconds later he was standing before Granath, his fist burning with dark energy. Then he brought it down, and the world around him shattered. A vast amount of Void elemental energy coursed out of his fist in a wave, obliterating the earth. Granath screamed as the corrosive power tore through his weakened body, erasing him from existence. Darkness claimed Jonathan a moment later, but not before the tide of essence entering him told him that he had achieved his goal.