His body almost seized up as it tried to move his bones along with his muscles. Unlike what would have happened to a base mortal if they tried this, Jonathan pushed past the discomfort, and endured, relying on his durability to stave off the negative effects.
His body began to shake rapidly as he moved, almost unable to contain his strength. As he used his Divinity and Void energy to empower his punch, the shaking only grew. The Exult bared its teeth and swung its sword, bright green light spilling off it as it went, creating a bank of mist. Jonathan’s own fist streaked through the air, a trail of Void energy streaming behind it.
A moment later, his fist hit the sword. Every bone in his arm broke at once, but he powered through, his muscles picking up the slack. The Exult chuckled, foreseeing what was about to happen. Jonathan’s arm would break, and he would be reduced to two slabs of meat, twitching on the ground.
Instead, a tiny thread of Void energy worked its way into the cracks in the blade, and with a quick mental command from Jonathan, they ruptured, cracking apart the weapon into a thousand pieces. As his hand flopped down to his side, hanging there uselessly, he struck with his other fist, leaping up to deliver an uppercut to the monster’s already ruined chin, using all of his power. His muscles contracted and condensed once more, his Domain forcing his body to use its true might.
His bones shattered once more, but this time, so did the Exult’s skull. Green elemental energy swirled around the monster’s head, trying to heal it. However, Jonathan would not stand for that, not after everything he had done in this battle.
Purple fire expanded out of his hand, rippling across the Exult’s grotesquely enlarged head. The elemental energy was banished, scattered to the four corners of the world by Jonathan’s mastery of his element. A spear of elemental energy emerged from his fist, slicing through the weak point in the monster’s skin, and into its skull.
With a grunt of pain, Jonathan twisted his hand, using it as a fulcrum for his will. With a sudden explosion of brilliant purple light, the monster’s head exploded, showering Jonathan with gore. To his horror, the skin where the blood landed, seeping in through the joints in his armor, began to steam and bubble, transmuting into some horrid facsimile of flesh. He gritted his teeth against the pain, and mustered his will. In many ways, this was the second part of the battle.
In the Waste Warrens
Edgar and his newfound allies crept across the gravelly ground of the Waste Warrens, sneaking behind the fort of an enemy faction. Over the last week, he had made inroads with a few of the semi independent forts of the region, convincing them to join him in the hopes of defeating Slothari. Of course, there were always those who would rather live as slaves than risk dying as heroes. It was against some of those cowards that they fought now.
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Kendal, the mage whom Edgar had convinced to join him upon first entering the Waste Warrens, strode by his side, cloaked in a shield of elemental energy. Edgar, meanwhile, concealed the sounds made by the others with cushions of air, preventing their approach from being noticed by the advanced senses of the fort defenders.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Edgar asked, watching with unease as they clambered up a slippery slope to the back of the fort.
“Yes. I have been here before on trading missions. The rulers of this fort think that their illusion magic is sufficient to guard their domain. Unfortunately, it only works if you aren’t expecting it.”
“Are there no guards here?”
“Oh, of course there are guards. That is where you come in, disciple of the Hellbreaker. You are an elite, or at least, that is what I have been led to believe.”
“I am,” Edgar sighed. “We’ve gone over this before.”
“Well, as long as you’re confident.”
The two men fell silent, walking the rest of the distance in a shroud of quiet. Behind them, the other fighters marched, disciplined in the extreme.
Edgar raised a hand for them to stop, sensing a fighter intrude upon his outer ring of elemental energy detection. He snapped his fingers, and a bolt of concentrated air rocketed towards the source of the disturbance, curving around the corner of the pass. There was a scream, which he silenced easily enough, and the fighter fell over the edge and to the ground far below.
They rounded the bend in the path, Edgar looking out for other guards. He found them soon enough, carousing at the top of the pass, seemingly unworried about assault. Clearly, nobody had attacked here in quite some time. Bottles of wine and other spirits lay across the ground, the sheer volume indicating the fighters’ stats. Edgar sent a small gust of wind towards one of the bottles, blowing it towards the edge. Its owner let out a cry of rage, getting up and racing after it. It only took a subtle push from the wind to knock him over the edge. The fall would hardly kill him, but it would keep him out of the fight.
So subtle was Edgar in his manipulation of elemental energy that none of the other guards noticed anything, simply laughing at the other man’s misfortune. After all, they were all Tier 3. He would likely come stumbling back up the path a few minutes later. Edgar repeated the action a few more times, but eventually, his luck ran out. His latest target, a stocky dwarven woman, resisted his push enough to alert the others that something was awry.
“What was that?” She drunkenly exclaimed as she stumbled back from the edge of the cliff, letting the bottle smash against the ground far below. “Something tried to push me!”
The guards suddenly snapped to attention, purging the alcohol from their systems with their elemental energy and stats. Edgar cursed. It was time for him to see how he measured up against the guards. Kendal gave him a pointed look, as if to say the same thing.