Arkanon gave Jonathan a pointed look, and headed towards his portal. Jonathan followed, and both men entered the swirling disc of exotic energy. A moment later, they stood on one of the many islands dotting the Roiling Ocean, the vast body of lava that Jonathan had briefly seen during one of his previous ventures to Tartarus. Below them stretched out a massive city, perched on a mountainous island. In the distance, an immense beast crossed the ocean, propelling a tidal wave of lava before it. Slothari’s latest form was almost half a mile in length, and a gargantuan cetaceous head poked out above the waves, covered in thick black scales. A single horn protruded from her brow, crackling with scarlet lightning.

The horn blazed brighter and brighter, before loosing a bolt of lightning as thick as a truck from its tip. The air around it split, and the heavens rung as the bolt shattered the still air. A shield of mana and elemental power rose up above the city, and Jonathan quickly lent his Void energy to it, sending a ripple of purple across it. The bolt struck home a moment later, and the shield caved in, bending below the pressure. Jonathan found himself glad that Slothari hadn’t used something like this in Mire, as the fight would have been catastrophic. He still would have had a chance of winning, but it would have been similar to his battle with Granath, which had almost killed him. Hopefully, this would be different.

“Deliver the Hellbreaker onto me, or I will raze this realm to the ground!” A burbling roar erupted from Slothari’s maw, shaking the lava around her.

“You ready?” Jonathan asked Arkanon.

“To avenge my beloved? Always.” Arkanon’s voice had a strange chord of sadness in it, but also joy. He might die here, but he would be happy doing so.

The ruler of the second layer of Tartarus summoned another portal, this time below them. Before Jonathan could blink, they were suspended in the sky above Slothari, poised to strike. Before the circle lord noticed them, they plummeted from the sky, both of them charging up their strongest skills. Rather than using Void Missile, Jonathan turned his body into a missile, coating himself in a layer of colorless conceptual power. His Domain hummed to life, and sent him shooting down at many times the speed of sound. Mana gathered around his fists, thousands of points of the stuff turning into twin drills of light that could have carved through a mountain. Against Slothari, it was barely enough.

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Meanwhile, Arkanon’s gauntlets shifted into constructs of pure fire, their heat searing Jonathan, even through his armor. It was painful, but mostly harmless. It was better than the alternative, which was Arkanon not fighting at all. His Master Rank domain expanded behind him, shooting him down even faster than Jonathan could move. With a grimace, Jonathan sent jets of purple fire out of his legs, relying on the conceptual resonance of his element to eat away at the distance between him and Arkanon. Sometimes his mental gymnastics around his element worked, and sometimes they didn’t. Luckily for him, this situation was one of the latter types.

Slothari turned her ponderously large head up towards them, sensing the approach of two meteors of potency. It was too late for her though, and they smashed into her head, buckling the scales. Although her defense seemed immaculate, in this form her stats were spread across a gargantuan body, meaning that her scales were weaker than if she had been in a smaller form.

Jonathan sliced through a joint between two scales and loosed the full power of his gathered energy. A detonation resounded through Slothari’s flesh, and a football field sized chunk of flesh simply vanished. A shockwave passed through the rest, tearing it apart. Then Arkanon’s strike hit home, cauterizing the flesh and preventing easy regeneration. Not that such a thing would have done anything on a reasonable timescale, what with the size of the circle lord’s body.

There was a bellow of rage, and then a sudden thump of compressed air as the monster’s form shrunk down, leaving a vacuum the size of a small city. Jonathan had no idea what powered Slothari’s transformations, but it was immensely potent. To be able to warp that much flesh between different forms, seemingly forever, was the strongest ability he had seen so far. Even Granath’s soul manipulation paled in comparison. While it was potentially stronger, if equalized, the circle lord had been unable to break past the limiters of his natural strength. Had he been able to progress, he would have turned into a true monster. Perhaps that was why he was the first circle lord.

Slothari’s new form looked vaguely demonic, but in a way Jonathan had never seen. her skin was red, and absolutely covered in horns, each of which vibrated back and forth at hypersonic speeds. Shards of razor sharp bone coated them, and her mere existence stirred up whirlwinds around her. So powerful were the winds that she could hover in the air. A large hole was driven through her shoulder, but it didn’t seem to inhibit her much. That was yet another advantage of her natural ability. If she ever took a wound too severe to heal, she could simply pick a form that wasn’t affected by it.

Before either Jonathan or Arkanon could do anything, she blitzed forwards, moving so fast that she was a blur.