Jonathan and Hushar expanded their domains in unison, knocking back the tentacles. It was a losing battle though, once Slothari brought out her own domain. The power of a being left the hone their elemental power for eons was brought to bear, the world itself bowing to her wishes.
Jonathan raced forth, even as his flesh threatened to bubble and burst. Waves of the Void coursed through his body, excising the taint. Hushar let out a roar of rage and charged alongside Jonathan, ignoring his injuries in favor of killing the being that had stolen the form of his brother, simply for the purpose of tricking him. His rage only grew stronger as he realized that he had almost fallen for it too.
Slothari dashed forwards to meet Jonathan, her fists balling up to fight him in his field of expertise. He was almost as fast as she was, but not quite. A fist snuck around his defences and impacted his armor, shattering bones and sending him to the ground. Whatever Slothari’s form was, it possessed immense strength, far greater than his own.
As he rose, Divinity sparked around his form, girding him in a cloak of golden light.
The ground beneath him shattered as he exploded forwards, ducking under a powerful palm strike from his foe. Slothari weaved out of the way of his own punch, even enhanced by Divinity as he was. Then her body shifted once more, lengthening until it looked like a serpent on two legs. Almost twenty feet in length and covered in rippling muscles, her new form was far faster than her previous one, which seemed to have been more rounded in nature. Jonathan found himself rocking backwards as a dozen strikes landed in a blink of an eye, individually containing little force, but collectively pushing his recovering bones out of alignment. As he had expected, this was a fight that could easily go against him. However, that was if he didn’t consider all of the tricks he had at his disposal.
His store of stat points drained in an instant, sets of 99 dropping into Strength and Dexterity. Those were the two areas in which he needed the most assistance, and the ones that his Greater Smite skill would empower the most. Might surged through his body, his muscles contracting and expanding with enough strength to shatter boulders. He let out a howl of fury, and loosed himself on Slothari.
Hushar took advantage of his secondary role in the battle to pepper Slothari with curving arcs of energy, loosed from the end of his sword. Empowered by his Domain, they contained as much power as a ballistic missile. Slothari’s sinuous body curved from side to side, avoiding the majority of the strikes. Despite this, one hit home, slicing into her flesh far further than it should have. The circle lord hissed in anger, and shifted her form once more. Jonathan could tell she was building up to something, as so far, she hadn’t used anything he would associate with the power of a realm’s peak combatant.
Her serpentine form expanded, widening while remaining at the same length. Scales shifted into flesh, and a titanic ox soon pawed at the ground, flame billowing from its nostrils. It exuded an aura of pure solidity, so resolute in its strength that the world around it almost warped. It was some sort of conceptual effect, Jonathan soon realized, as gravity began to pick up, centered around the monster.
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Slothari let out a chuckle, far deeper than any sound she had made before. “This ox once ruled the plains of Tartarus, shattering mountains with its charge. Even the Uthraki left it alone. Then I killed it, and added it to my arsenal.”
Jonathan wasn’t sure what to say to that, and instead he cupped his hands together around the air itself, summoning a charge of consumption in between them. A black hole blossomed into existence, tearing at the air around it. Then he thrust it forwards. It whipped towards Slothari, pulling in the molecules surrounding it. The circle lord, in her current form, was too large to easily avoid it. Instead, she kicked at the ground with her massive hind legs, hooves the size and shape of manhole covers tearing apart the soil. A wave of energy cascaded outwards in a bow wave as she kicked off, her new form using its strength to great effect.
One horn punctured the black hole, and it burst around it, the first time Jonathan had witnessed one of his signature abilities being so easily overpowered. A star of bright elemental energy formed in its center, tearing it apart. Greenish light scoured his own technique from existence, and the horn burst into flame. Somehow, Slothari was combining the natural abilities of her monstrous form with her elemental mastery.
Jonathan gazed at the horn warily, knowing that it was the beginning of Slothari’s more serious investment in this fight. Thus far, he had simply been tested, with the circle lord wanting to see if he was a worthy opponent. Even as Hushar continued to barrage her with slices of fiery light, she focused on Jonathan. Tiny ribbons of molten blood slid down her thick hide, but the damage was far too little to make any sort of impact.
As she charged, the earth began to shake, and lava poured out from cracks that formed out of nowhere, turning the ground into a hellscape. The mud baked to solid rock, which was quickly turned to powder by the ox’s implacable charge. Jonathan’s muscles twitched, empowered by Divinity and Stamina. He waited until the last moment, until his Blessing kicked in. Then he rolled in between Slothari’s hooves, and out the other side.
As he went, he raked a blade of pure nothingness along the monster’s underbelly, opening it up to the elements. Thick, ropey entrails fell, but Slothari seemed oblivious. As Jonathan watched, the monster’s form changed once more, leaving only a thin scar along the abdomen of the minotaur that stood before him, an ax clutched between its meaty hands. Every time Slothari changed, her monster form grew more and more powerful.
Jonathan dove forwards, his fists hammering into the beast as she finished transforming. Ropy muscles were pulverized, and bones cracked beneath his assault. Slothari merely snorted, and sent the ax around in a cleaving arc. A strip of power slid off the end of the blade, nearly bisecting Jonathan. He leaned backwards in the nick of time, and it sliced a piece off his helmet. Then it zipped off towards the horizon, cleaving through a small mountain as it went.