The paralysis affecting the nilbog fizzled out entirely too soon. Lucas had maybe half the time to catch his breath and come up with a plan than what he expected, and that surprise cost him the initiative. The nilbog shot after him the very moment it regained control of it's faculties, and all he could do was run away.

"I don't know what to do! None of my Skills are hitting it hard enough!" Lucas yelled back to the rest of his party. Most of his focus had to be devoted to navigating the immediate area--because with the monster trailing after him, tripping would prove a potentially lethal mistake--but he needed ideas.

At this point, his Skills were eating up MP, and he wasn't making any progress toward putting the nilbog down. It wasn't sustainable.

"Keep its attention!" his mother instructed as Lucas [Quick Step]ped out of an attempted tackle. "It can't heal forever, and we'll try to wear it down!"

Once again, Lucas wished he knew more of his enemy. Its level couldn't be that high, since he was able to successfully stay out of its reach, albeit only with his stats boosted by his augmentation and liberal use of his movement Skill. If not for the nil bog's prodigious healing, Lucas would have been able to deal with it just fine. But if he knew something of its Skills, or anything like that, he might have been able to do more.

More arcs of lightning, telekinetically thrown debris, and small blades came flying in at the nilbog. It let out a roar when one bolt of plasma took out one of its eyes, then the mana surrounding it--including the remnants of Mary's strike--was sucked into its body. To everyone else, it might have seemed like the magic simply faltered, but Lucas perceived some sort of change in the creature.

He immediately put more distance between the two of them, but the moment the nilbog's roar cut out, Lucas's efforts proved to be futile. One second, the creature was standing there, seemingly in crippling pain, and the next it was right in front of him. The monster swung its talons, and Lucas was not able to activate the [Amulet of Shelter] in time, before they hit him. He was launched backwards and to the side, where a tree was there to painfully stop his momentum. But the impact was nothing next to the burning pain of the talons' lacerations across Lucas's left shoulder and chest.

He couldn't help it, he cried out at the pain.

"Lu!" his mother screamed, and he had enough awareness to perceive a pocket of mana shoot out of her extended arm toward him.

But it did not reach him ahead of the nilbog. Whatever it had done by absorbing ambient mana, it seemed to have put the monster in a berserk state, in tandem with the physical augmentation it received. Lucas had its entire focus, and it hit him like a boulder cascading down a slope.

The tree creaked in protest at the impact as the air was forced from Lucas's lungs, so that he couldn't even give voice to the sudden pain. Everything around him faded away slightly--everything except the monster's snarling maw inches from his face. The nilbog may have been twice the size of its kin, but that only put it near the height of a human adult, and a smaller one at that. However, right now, Lucas could have sworn it had swelled to titanic proportions.

And then Mary's Skill hit them both, and the entire dynamic changed.

The monster faltered and stumbled back as Lucas was revitalized, returned and perhaps surpassing the condition he'd been in at the start of the battle. On instinct, rather than any true intelligence, he activated [Overcharge] and felt his MP start precipitously climbing the moment his HP was topped off.

"Woah!" Lucas exclaimed as he shot to his feet and watched the lacerations vanish in an instant.

This is amazing, Lucas thought at the very limits of [Hyper Processing]'s capabilities, I knew mom's healing was better than mine but this is extreme and more than what I saw her do in the battle outside the village--it can't be an affinity thing can it? Mom wouldn't have held back when it came to keeping other people alive so that is the only thing I can think of.

As he was speeding through those considerations, Lucas also watched the effects Mary's healing had on the nilbog, and he was left confused more than anything. The moment the healing washed over the monster, it had faltered in its ferocity, but the effects went much further than that. It grew sluggish as injuries started opening up all over its body out of nowhere--except that wasn't exactly true.

They didn't come out of nowhere, but appeared in the exact places the nilbog had been injured over the course of the fight and since healed from. As soon as Lucas realized that, he had a plan.

[Single Sting] was returned to its sheath and Lucas shot forward. Taking advantage of the monster's sudden lethargy, he practically fluttered around it as he delivered strike after strike with his bare fist. Instead of using [Shock], each of his punches delivered a pulse of [Arclight Renewal].

It was crazy! And yet, the results were immediately telling. The nilbog flinched back away from him as all of its injuries started reopening, and each of Lucas's strikes left a bruise that did not fade before his eyes. The monster tried to swipe at him again, but Lucas had [Overcharge] boosting practically all of his active Skills right now, and the swipe came nowhere near him.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Then the monster tried to run, and Lucas knew it was time to end it. He dashed forward as the nilbog turned, and delivered a punishing kick to the side of its knee. Then he turned to his mother and yelled, "Heal it, as much as you can!"

Lucas's words sounded insane, and he certainly never expected to call for what would amount to torture of an enemy, but the others must have seen enough to know, and his mom did not hesitate to do as he asked. Another large pocket of mana shot from her, resplendent blue to the regular eye, and crashed into the nilbog.

All the damage that had been inflicted upon the monster returned in full, then it went even further. The healing magic was absorbed into its body and it began to swell and distort, eliciting a horrifying screech from its maw. Lucas did the sensible thing and ran away as fast as he could.

He did not fully escape the eruption of black smoke and sickening gore, which knocked him forward, face-first into the ground.

"UrgkK...oh, gods--" Lucas barely had enough time to lift himself from the ground before he voided the meager contents of his stomach all in one go. "UrrrrgGK!"

"Lucas!"

"Lu! Are you okay?"

Several voices called out to him, but he was unable to respond right now. He felt another wave of energizing healing magic flow over him, and though the feeling was great, his mind betrayed him by replaying the moment the nilbog blew up again. Lucas was left dry-heaving, and doing all he could not to roll in the mess he'd made. But there was mess everywhere.

His notifications took that moment to start rolling through, and Lucas welcomed the distraction.

[*ding Your party has slain [Goblin - level 61] x3!]

[*ding Your party has slain [Nilbog - level 103]!]

Highest-leveled monster yet, Lucas thought dryly before moving on.

[*ding [Rapid Regeneration] has reached level 50!]

[*ding [Arclight Renewal] has reached level 44-46!]

[*ding [Shock] has reached level 41-42!]

[*ding [Quick Step] has reached level 47!]

[*ding [Hyper Processing] has reached level 50!]

"Lucas!" his mom exclaimed once more as she fell to her knees beside him, unconcerned with the blood and visceral bits that soiled her clothes as a result. "You're okay, you're okay. Whew, I don't know if my heart can take watching you get hurt like that!"

She let out a nervous laugh at the end as she continued to rub his back, but he could tell from the tremble in her voice that she was shaken. Lucas sat up and went to hug her, hesitating just before doing so as he remembered the state he was in. His [Hygiene] Skill must be crying.

"I'm okay, mom. I just, uh, kinda need a bath..."

Despite her nerves, Mary let out a resounding laugh at that, then closed the remaining distance and hugged him. "I guess we both do!"

After a moment, their embrace was interrupted by the clearing of a throat, and the two of them separated to see Belinda facing them while Harry's eyes were rooted on the spot the nilbog had died.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, and I'm glad you're safe, too, Lucas, but can either of you explain what just happened?" Belinda spoke lightly with a strong undercurrent of concern.

Lucas looked back to where he'd fought the nilbog. "It healed," he said, "from literally anything we did, and only seemed to be getting stronger until mom's magic hit us both."

He turned to Belinda before finishing, "It turns out that healing magic reversed that, for some reason. And, well, now we're here."

Belinda didn't look any less concerned, but she took a deep, slow breath and said, "Well then, it's twice-over a good thing you two are here, isn't it?"

"I don't think I can fight one of those," Harry suddenly told them, finally turning away from the scene of slaughter. "Against the regular goblins and even those wergests, I could help, but none of my Skills did a thing to the nilbog."

"And mine weren't any better," Belinda added nearly under her breath.

"Your Skills did work, though," Lucas objected. "All that damage came back once we started healing it."

"The plan was never to fight anything, anyway," Mary quickly clarified. "We are still going to find their camp, sneak in and free everyone, and sneak right out. If all goes well, none of us will have to deal with even a single goblin."

Her words hung in the air, and it was left unspoken that the odds of all going well had already proven slight.

"We need to get moving again," Lucas filled in the silence.

Belinda and Harry both nodded, and the [Hunter] left to retrieve his scattered weapons.

"Yes, we do," Mary looked directly into Lucas eyes. "But first, you need a bath."

Lucas stared at her in confusion. "Yes, but there's no time to go all the way back home to do that, and we need to get to Eugene..."

"Lucas, you're smoking," his mother said, then stared pointedly at his arm.

He looked down and saw the black smoke wiping off the mess coating him, wherever it touched his bare skin. And from the slight fluctuations in the mana around the smoke, Lucas was given even more cause for concern. He turned back to his mom and inspected everywhere she'd touched the nilbog's remains as well, including from when he'd hugged her, like an idiot! But for some reason, he was the only one smoking.

"We all need to bathe, like right now," Lucas instantly changed his position.

"The corruption?" his mom asked him, and the others' heads immediately turned, their attention snagged by the word.

"Maybe. Probably," Lucas confirmed. Just to make sure, he targeted the smoke and used [Identify].

[Miasma]

"My Skill says it's miasma," he furrowed his brow and told them, "so maybe something different."

"Miasma is a type of noxious mana," Mary enlightened them. "I don't think it's the same thing but either way, it's a problem, as miasma is poisonous to most living things."

"You're right," she told Lucas, "we all need to wash ourselves right now."

"If we go off trail, to the east," Belinda said, "we should find the river soon. We can get clean there."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Harry asked rhetorically. "Let's go!"

The [Hunter] started jogging off the path before he even fully finished speaking. The other three took a moment to make sure everyone was in agreement, before they quickly ran off after him.

Miasma, corruption, Lucas considered the threat as he chased after Harry, please be safe, Eugene...