Before Slothari could recover, Arkanon released his own last ditch effort, and his body swelled with boundless strength. His muscles bulged, his armor growing with it. Within the span of a second, he was the size of a building, and his fist descended, limned in copious amounts of elemental energy. “This is for Akandra, you sack of unclean filth!” He bellowed, his voice rumbling through his enlarged lungs.
Then he drove Slothari down, hammering her into the lava below. Like a meteor, she shot through the sky, about half a mile crossed in a fraction of a second. The sea split beneath her as the hurricane force winds swirling around her body swept the lava into a frenzy. Then it closed above her, and it vanished.
Jonathan fought to recover his Divinity, dropping Smite for a bit. His health was down below a quarter, many of his bones so brittle at this point that they might as well have been those of a mortal. His armor was in rough shape too, and had it not been the premier reward of one of the hardest quests in the universe, it would have already been destroyed.
As his reserves ticked up at an agonizing rate, the ocean of lava below started to boil over, vast bubbles popping at its surface. Tremors raced across its surface, and waves rippled outward, centered on where Slothari had fallen. A titanic aura erupted from the lava, and Jonathan was forced to release his own to prevent it from crushing him. It had a physical weight to it, something he had never seen before.
An angelic figure rose out of the swirling lava, ten feet tall. Wings covered in dark feathers extended out of its shoulder blades, almost double its height. A completely blank face, without eyes, ears or any other distinguishing figures covered the front of its smooth head. It held a sword of light in one hand, ran through with the green energy of corruption. The wings beat once, and suddenly, it was before Jonathan. The sword slashed out, carving through his armor like it was made of butter. Jonathan recoiled, thinking that he had avoided the attack. Then he felt something give in his abdomen, and a torrent of blood washed down his front as his armor split open. His entrails fell out, unspooling like a macabre string. It would have been a deathblow for anyone but a warrior of the System, and even then, thousands of points of his health vanished.
He hurriedly stuffed them back inside his flesh, and sealed the wound with pure mana, hissing as it cauterized the wound. All the while, Slothari watched, somehow tracking his movements without eyes. She was toying with him now.
Arkanon threw himself forwards with a roar of pure rage, his gauntlets shattering the sound barrier as he punched. Elemental energy blazed around him as he suspended himself in the air. Then his gauntlets stopped suddenly, and his entire body broke from the force of the blow being sent back through him. Slothari had stopped the attacks with a single hand.
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Jonathan’s resolve flickered for the first time since his defeat of Granath. The power that Slothari wielded was far more than any Tier 3 should have been able to access. It felt like it reached well into Tier 4. Then Jonathan saw something. As his gut knitted itself back together, he saw a flicker on Slothari’s face. It was minute, but for a moment, her flesh had transformed back into her previous form. Whatever this angelic body she had acquired was, it was an ability that took a toll on its user. All Jonathan had to do was wait her out.
Arkanon withdrew, his body creating an orchestra of cracks as his healing kicked in. Like Jonathan, he had already begun to reach the limits of his regeneration. Both of their health pools were effectively capped at a fraction of their normal amounts. The two fighters were at the last dregs of their power, but then again, so was Sloathari. If they could last out her final form, the battle would be over, or at least, far easier.
Luckily, faltering health polls had no effects on other resources, and Jonathan’s font of elemental energy was still just as large as ever. He had never run out, no matter how much he channeled the raw power of uncreation. Unlike the elemental abilities of others, the source of his power was unlimited. According to the elemental theory he had learned from Edgar, everyone utilized elemental energy based on its prevalence in the world around them, and from their own mastery. For example, Edgar would be useless in a vacuum, as he needed air to manipulate. Even the more esoteric concepts still had some grounding in reality. A wielder of Order would find their power limited in a more chaotic area, and vice versa for a Chaos practitioner. The only way to make up for this was raw might.
Jonathan and Arkanon gathered up their failing strength, sending stamina into regions of their bodies where their muscles had been flayed apart. Strength returned to failing limbs, but it was only temporary. Even if they won, the fallout would be catastrophic.
“Do you like this form?” Slothari crooned, her voice sounding like a choir. It was profane, to hear a beast of Hell speaking like an angel. “I took it from a Nephilim that had been banished here eons ago. The bastard get of a higher angel and a human. More powerful than both, but filled with mortal foibles.”
“You disgust me,” Jonathan replied, trying to stall. He was unsuccessful though, as Slothari cut through the air with her sword, a blazing arc of white light, veined with emerald, sliced out. Jonathan was too slow to dodge, and instead tried to protect himself with his Void abilities. Maw of the Void latched onto the incoming attack, trying to unbind it. It warred with him every step of the way, but he eventually managed it, only to be rewarded with a hypersonic punch straight to his already wounded gut.
The fist went straight through, and an explosion of gore shot out of his back. Jonathan spat up blood, and then seized the arm with all of his might, sending as much Void as could into it. He reached beyond the limits of his mortal form, and drew so much energy that his own body started to dissolve. Although he was immune to the Void itself, he was suffering from the pure energy contained within it, so dense that it harmed even him. All elements contained a tiny amount of corruption from other elements, and while it was normally a nonissue, Jonathan’s ability to draw more power than his mastery should have allowed made it one.