There was something massively strange about the noise the new monster made. It was as though the sound itself was disturbing space around him, making everything flicker and distort as though he was suddenly in a grainy, old-timey film.
Ray wasn’t the only one who heard and was shaken by the roar. Some of the members of Mary’s group, including Mary herself and her sister, were rushing upslope. But when they heard the roar, they all came to a halt too.
Thankfully, the ripping noise didn’t last long. Nevertheless, even after it was done, Ray’s ears rang loud and uncomfortable.
A part of him wanted to ask Mary’s group about the rest of the guards. Had they beaten them all? Couldn’t be, because there were only a small handful of them climbing higher.
The rest of the group was likely still entrenched against the spire’s defenders. It made Ray frown. Shouldn’t Mary Felds, the leader of the group, be there with the majority of her followers? Wasn’t she supposed to lead them personally?
Maybe this was a more complicated manoeuvre that required her to be personally elsewhere.
It just made Ray glad he wasn’t a leader of anybody.
What he was actually interested in, however, was locating the source of terrifying noise. So, without waiting for Mary or any of the others to catch up to him, Ray dismissed and resummoned his wings before taking flight.
Thankfully, it was only a short trip to where the last guard had gone. He didn’t have his eyeballs to guide him because he had dismissed the construct to make way for the maws. But he knew the path well enough. Besides, the sounds of furious battle and the strange lightshow farther ahead guided him better than anything else could have.
“No!”
Ray arrived just in time to see the man who had gone on ahead falling prey to the Lostcaller. Moving far too fast to see properly, the Lostcaller ripped a wide gash open on the man’s chest before slamming him with a combination of fire and lighting, both black as night.
“Go!” Ray yelled to the draconic maw construct he summoned with Lifeblood Soulform. “Catch him!”
The man had been blasted off the side of the spire. Ray couldn’t even tell if the unfortunate guy was still alive after taking that kind of damage.
But on the off chance he held on to a sliver of life, Ray’s construct could save him.
The next roar pulled Ray’s attention back to the monster at hand. A noise that was ten times worse now that he was up close and personal with the Lostcaller. A noise that seemed to rip through the fabric of the world, making an entirely different one shimmer in its place like a temporary holographic projection.
When it ended, Ray was finally able to focus on the monster itself. The creature’s form reminded him of a gorilla. Thick and overlong arms, shorter legs, and a well-built torso. But that was where the similarities to a normal animal back on Earth ended.
This was a monster through and through.
The Lostcaller sported a skeletal head with eyes that burned with black fire, a head that rested on a skeletal, spiny neck that stretched out like a giraffe but sinuous like a snake. Its machete-sized claws ruptured the ground wherever it stood. The ashen flesh on it writhed like it had a life of its own. Creepy didn’t even begin to cover the Lostcaller.
Thankfully, Ray was now close enough to use Primordial Gauge on it.
[Primordial Gauge]
Lostcaller [Monster] [Tier 11] [Level 34]
Often times, those who have purposefully lost their ways can only be brought around by one thing only. A punishing application of spiritual force. Lostcallers corral evil spirits, wielding fire and lightning like whips and brands to deliver their judgment.
Skills:
Dead Rift Roar [Tier 8]: Merge the living world with the spirit realm with a cry of your mighty voice. At Tier 8, this skill makes all attacks perform 32% extra spirit damage and lasts 80 seconds.
Black Ember [Tier 9]: Channel embalming fire that seals your foes’ attacks. At Tier 9, this skill supresses the last attack from your foe before this spell hits for 27 seconds.
Dark Lightning [Tier 9]: Send a crackle of spiritual lighting though the realm of the dead to emerge and strike the living.
Moulding Flesh [Tier 10]: Manipulate your flesh to form different shapes to grant you different functions.
Spirit Phase [Tier 9]: Temporarily exist in the spirit realm, making your body insubstantial and existing in two worlds at once. Enhances speed and resistance to Mana-based abilities.
Alright, wow. A Tier 11 and level 34 monster. This was beyond anything Ray had faced so far. Even worse, those abilities looked like they would be a pain in the ass to deal with.
No wonder the guards were adamant this monster would take care of Ray, Mary and the rest of them.
Just about ten levels stronger… Ray grinned. Then activated Goliath Eater.
Immediate power flooded him. His limbs felt lighter and stronger at the same time, his body had grown more solid and capable, and even his senses tingled like they were working overtime. Ray also used Vengeful Plunder, ready to boost his stats with every hit he landed on that thing.
Fighting the Lostcaller turned out to be just as annoying and hard as he had expected.
Ray tried to start off with a Spiritblood Stake, hoping the monster would lose its health over time as it moved around. But a deft splash of pitch black fire over its head snuffed out the spike of chaotic energy descending from above.
Ah, right. Sealing flames. Ray should have figured they would be great as a defensive tool.
A bolt of the same flames caught Ray too. He cursed, quickly smothering the fire and healing up the burns with some of his Recovery. When he checked, he found his access to Spiritblood Stake had been removed. The spell was greyed out. Not selectable.
Well, looked like he was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Ray flashed forward on his wings, eating up the distance between himself and the monster. He had cast Mottling Spiritguard too, crating a dozen orbs of chaos to race alongside him. As soon as he was close enough, he sent all twelve orbs to assail the monster, while he created another dozen as a defensive measure.
The monster responded by immolating itself in those black flames. Ray’s orbs collided against the lightless fire and immediately died.
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No problem. That last exchange had counted as “hits” for the purpose of Vengeful Plunder. Ray could feel his stats rising rapidly as a rush of power similar to Goliath Eater enveloped him.
The problem was that it didn’t seem enough.
With another roar that made the world flicker around Ray—which he understood now was the effect of the Dead Rift Roar skill—the monster seemed to partially vanish as it moved at a blistering speed. Right, another skill. Spirit Phase, or whatever it was called. Spirit Phase… wait a minute. Could Ray—
There was no time to test hypotheses when the Lostcaller flashed into a spot right in front of him and swung its arms so fast that they blurred.
Ray was throwing himself back, maintaining his shield of sparking orbs. The monster’s swiping arm seemed to phase right through the orbs before striking him hard. His Shaper Raiment tore, as did his chest underneath, and he was hammered back downslope.
The pain was blinding, but a quick application of Recovery healed the worst of the injury.
Though, it didn’t take care of everything. His vision remained distorted as though the monster was continuing to use Dead Rift Roar, a painful sizzling sensation eating away within.
Black flames rose around the Lostcaller as it prepared another attack. What was worse was that it was bulking up too. A part of it, at least. The writhing flesh shifted from off its torso to gather around one of its arms, forcing it to become a massive pillar of flesh bigger than the monster itself.
Ray, however, wasn’t interested in suffering another blow. He threw himself back, while creating the Impervious Shell barrier using Lifeblood Soulform.
That huge arm looked like it would rely on a direct physical impact rather than the spirit damage of the last attack. A more physical barrier that was also stronger was the way to go. But even then, Ray flew back, not willing to exchange blows.
Not unless it was on his terms.
The Lostcaller slammed its oversized arm into the shell. Its power was massive. The shell flew back, its front surface cracking so hard that the monster’s fist momentarily punched out through the back. Then it immediately twisted around to attack its original target.
But Ray was already on the move. He had flashed forward with Soullife Cloak active and his wings jetting his speed to incredible levels. At the same time, he created a couple dozen sparking orbs with Mottling Spiritguard, sending two of the spheres straight at the onrushing Lostcaller.
The trick was to use the same surprise he had with the guard. Just as the orbs reached the Lostcaller, which had created another cloak of black flames over itself, the orbs changed into two draconic maw constructs.
They immediately attacked the right and left arms of the monster, clamping their spectral jaws around the limbs and jerking the Lostcaller’s momentum to a stop.
Opening it up to Ray’s rushing attack.
He charged in on his wings, grafting a draconic maw to his arm with Primal Spiritcraft. In just a blink, he was right in front of the monster, unleashing a blast of compressed, fiery breath.
The monster phased right through.
Ray hadn’t realized that Spirit Phase would allow it to turn so much of its body entirely transparent. It turned even more spectral than the draconic maws holding it back, its arms slipping through the jaws as its body traversed through Ray’s body.
With a quick twist, Ray turned to see the Lostcaller coming to a stop and turning too. Their speeds were evenly matched. Then it grew wings just like him.
His skin crawled as he watched the flesh writhing off the monster’s oversized arm to form two large and fleshy flaps waving off its shoulder. It took to the air, immolating itself with dark flames once again. There were so many fires this time, it almost turned white with brilliance, forcing Ray to squint his eyes against the blinding light.
It was going to attack. He knew it. Ray had to stop it.
With as quick a motion as he was capable of, he activated Soulstrike. Two enormous True Mana arms rose off his shoulder. He dismissed the constructs at the same time, applying more True Mana to turn the end of the arms into the giant draconic heads. Now he was ready.
Just as the Lostcaller shot in a like a meteor at Ray, he slapped the two draconic arms together at the exact spot where the monster would pass through. Ray had also made the maws fire their laser breaths as they collided together.
It was no surprise, then, that they exploded.
The blast was so powerful, Ray himself was thrown off his feet to tumble over the side of the spire. He used a bit more Recovery to reduce the pain of the flashing burn, but his bigger focus was on getting back to the spire.
When he arrived back at the spot where the blast had occurred, he found the Lostcaller was already getting back to its feet. Ruined feet, but still alive and standing.
Ray grinned anyway. He had figured out that the entirety of the monster couldn’t be incorporeal at the same time. There had to be a portion that was still in this world. It would have been tremendously difficult to target that portion directly, but that was where something like an explosion came in handy. Now, he just had to repeat that exercise.
He just had to make sure he didn’t get hit.
The Lostcaller tried firing its spectral lighting. That Dark Lightning attack that really was unseeable. But Ray’s Spiritguard orbs that he hadn’t exhausted yet did well to revolve around him at a fast pace. They were enough to protect him.
“Come on,” Ray said. “What are you waiting for? Attack me again, you monster.”
The Lostcaller replied with another Dead Rift Roar. Ray was getting used to the disorienting effects by now.
Except this time, the monster wasn’t satisfied with just a simple flicker. Its roar continued, even after its mouth closed, the spectral world turning more and more real around Ray. His heartrate picked up. What was it doing now?
A second later, the rate of its attacks turned relentless. More blasts of lightning came out of nowhere. It added the black flames to the mixture as well, streams and fireballs coming in hot and fast. There were so many that Ray was practically blinded, unable to see anything beyond his little protective circle of revolving Spiritguard orbs.
He was quickly forced to call up more of them. Several had already fallen under the Lostcaller’s ceaseless assault. Did that thing have no lack of Mana?
Ray felt it approach without actually seeing it attack. He simply instinctively activated Lifeblood Soulform to call upon Impervious Shell. It was all he could do when the monster gave him no room at all to dodge.
The defence failed. Ray was unsurprisingly blasted off his feet as the shell was bashed backwards.
When he had landed again, he found himself almost entirely in the world that the Lostcaller was trying to summon. The hell was going on?
All around him, the land was blasted and broken. Dead black trees covered the muddy grey earth. Whirls of dull gold and riven ash filled the sky. And that smell… Ray’s nose cringed. It was like flesh burning.
The Lostcaller approached, burning with power.
Shit, shit. Ray forced himself to rise, to face his enemy. He forced himself to think.
With the monster now wise to his strategy, while also employing its own rather successful counter-idea, how was he going to turn this around?
And then it turned out Ray himself might not need to figure anything out.
A sudden bursting sensation from within him preceded the manifestation of a Tower Node. Ray frowned. It was the disgusting one. The Tower Node of the Fleshcrafter.
“What do you want?” he asked.
The Tower Node blinked, the flesh within its glassy case turning brilliant white for a second. For whatever reason, the Lostcaller stopped. It almost appeared… hesitant.
Then the world broke. Ray was once more fully back in the real world, inside the Second Floor of the Tower of Forging, upon the mountainous spire they were trying to reach the top of. Back. He grinned. He was back again.
A spear of ice crashed in, landing nearly upon the monster. It dashed back, only to move even farther away as a spinning sword arced through the spot it had been a second ago.
Ray looked around to see the Felds rushing towards him.
“I knew you were going to come!” Alice shouted.
Before Ray could reply, the Lostcaller shrieked shortly, then whipped around and dashed off upslope. Was it actually retreating because there were more people? That didn’t feel right.
Ray looked down at his sudden allies. “Keep up!”
They were still a bit far, but Ray was certain he saw the two sisters focusing on two different things. Alice smiled widely back at him as her sword spun back to her hand. Mary, however, was frowning at the Tower Node.
Ray would have taken the time to frown at it too, but there was no time to waste. Dismissing and resummoning his wings to reset the timer, he crushed another True Mana shard before rushing after the Lostcaller. He would have to keep an eye on when Goliath Eater ran out. Losing its effects now would be disastrous.
He didn’t understand, though. Why was the monster running away? With the power it had displayed, it could handily deal with both Ray and his reinforcements.
Ray looked at the Fleshcrafter Tower Node suspiciously. It had stopped blinking now that the Lostcaller had run off. But why had it showed up in the first place? All Ray could think of was the monster’s writhing flesh somehow seducing the Tower Node to appear into being.
The Lostcaller appeared in the distance before long. But it wasn’t the monster that caught Ray’s attention.
It was the bridge.
The top of the cliff was connected to the peak of the spire with via a long, stone bridge. An arch stretched underneath it as support, its thicker ends held on the cliff face and the spire.
Was that what the Lostcaller had run off to guard? No, it wasn’t standing in front of the weathered stone structure. The Lostcaller had positioned itself closer to the centre of the peak, where the tip of the spire rose even higher and narrowed significantly as it speared towards the sky.
That’s when, with a gasp, Ray saw it.
It was difficult to see, what with the monster burning wide swathes of the area with black flames and lightless lightning crackling everywhere around it, but the gleaming white shape was unmistakeable.
The Lostcaller was guarding a Tower Node.