Lili still had about half of her mana left, but not for long. Not only did she need to interrupt the elemental, but she also had to give it a good blow that would deal a decent amount of damage. To accomplish that, she planned to use an ability she had used before. She could have done something new but was still uncertain about exposing too many of her abilities since they were dead giveaways of her ancestry, at least to Alyx, they could be. It depended on how studied the gnome was in certain elven species and a risk she was unwilling to take just yet, considering his research tendencies.
Moving towards the elemental at speed, she tried to dodge a decent chunk of cheese projectiles just through sheer speed. Sadly, there were too many of them, and many still hit her. Luckily, she wore her black leather armor with enchantments strong enough that the blobs would take a while before eating through the fabric, well, if they even managed to stay on, since her movements did manage to sling some of them off. Still, what would do the real work was her aura.
The only reason she had used this particular aspect of her power was because she knew no one would be able to detect the difference between it and her previous one. Well, once again, Alyx might realize that there were different magical properties to the two, but the gnome didn’t have the reach with his presence and was distracted by the high-speed cheese bits being thrown about and covering this area of the forest.
Lili’s current aura worked to eat away at the magic of a spell after it had been cast, slowly pulling it apart. The process was slow, but it counteracted the magical heat of the cheese. More importantly, this particular aspect of the innate magic she had fed her enhancement also helped to eat away at matter that came in contact with the lilac fire lighting that fluttered across her body. Naturally, when the matter was consumed, she regained mana, which made it useful in certain scenarios like the one she was currently in.
So, unworried about her cheese-covered body, she eventually made it to the elemental, even with a blob that had smacked her face and hurt like hell. Upon reaching the elemental in a blur of power, she stabbed through the monster's cheese dome vortex and into its pizza-like body, unleashing the technique she had been building up in her run.
“Unbound Destruction.”
BOOM!
Lili was blasted back by the explosion she had made with a good chunk of her pure mana. She had slightly diluted it, but not much, mainly to conserve normal mana, which meant she felt the burn in her body as she slammed into a tree. The pain didn’t matter, however, as the damage had been done, and a chunk of the pizza had been torn off. More importantly, however, the dome of cheese stopped, stopping the barrage of cheese and even causing the cheese elemental to lower to the ground, hovering a foot off the ground.
Of course, with the cheese barrage done, the rest of the party could finally act.
“Solar Beam!” Yelled Rose as a beam of pure sunlight came down into the clearing, doubling the light level in the forest as golden light radiated from the spot where the beam struck. The light only increased further as the redhead's beam was joined by a white and silver beam of light as Jasmine yelled out, “Final Spark!”.
Alyx and Tesilim waited for the two techniques to finish, and they saw the elemental, its body burnt and half-melted. They were both going to follow up with the two ladies, but Alyx had told Tesilim to wait and see if the two attacks were enough to weaken the monster to the point the gnome could trap it.
The two attacks had not been enough, and Alyx told them as much.
“Guys it fought off the absorption of the ring. Tesilim, me and you are up next.”
Tesilim was feeding some mana into a water slash when the cheese vortex around the elemental sputtered into existence. The burnt marks of the elemental quickly melted as if it was shedding a second skin, revealing its pepperoni and mushroom-covered body once again. Except now cheese constantly dripped from its form as if it was bleeding cheese.
The elemental hastily rose into the air, its dome of cheese at full power, but did not release the barrage of cheese. Instead, it floated there, at least until it was struck by a half-assed water slash, which caused all hell to break loose.
First, it unleashed a wave of air that sounded like a weird howl, and afterward, Tesilim was struck in the chest by a slice of pepperoni the size of his head. The sharp meat slice went right through his armor and body enhancement and was lodged into his chest. Tesilim was shocked and looked down as if he couldn’t believe what had occurred. Luckily for him, Drex was with him and pushed him to the ground, a second slice whistling past the spot where his head had been.
“Fuck! Tesilim, you okay!?” Lili roared in his mind, and he responded with an odd calmness.
“I think so. It doesn’t feel like it went in too deep.” A statement was proven true as Drex ripped the slice from the elf’s chest, revealing a somewhat shallow wound.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Lili hadn’t been still as she spoke with Tesilim, and she was running at the elemental. At the same time, Rose had seen the elf get hit and knew she had to buy some time, so she pumped her body full of mana as her enhancement reached a new height and rushed at the elemental.
Meanwhile, Alyx, who had been waiting to see what the elemental would do, finally got to action as he began a chant.
"By steel's edge and iron's might;
Release metal slashes into the fight-”
Jasmine saw the slice hit Tesilim and began running towards him until she heard him in her mind. Hearing he was fine, she instead started shooting beams of light at the elemental.
Of course, the elemental hadn’t stayed still, and cheese blobs once again flew at the party members, who now had to be careful where they stepped since the cheese that the earlier cheese storm had left was still hot. All the while, as cheese blobs flew, the elemental continued throwing sharp slices of pepperoni at the party.
Lili arrived first and blasted the elemental with a point-blank slash of power. The elemental took the hit, which ate through its dome, but in return, Lili was slammed with more cheese and actually felt a cut on her skin as she failed to dodge a slice of meat.
Rose arrived a few seconds after Lili, the redhead glowing gold as she pushed her enhancement and protective aura to the max. Her body began to burn in response to using so much barely diluted godly mana, but she didn’t care.
As the redhead arrived, she screamed, “Shield Bash!” and the glow around her shield grew, the hunk of metal blurring forward soon after. Sadly, the bash struck the dome of whirling cheese and was rebuffed, which surprised the redhead, making her stumble. The stumble back left her wide open, and a slice of pepperoni cut through her armor, leaving a cut at her waist. Thankfully, the blob of cheese that followed was blocked by a silver shield which was followed by a beam of silver that barely pushed its way through the vortex and struck the elemental directly.
Alyx finished his spell right as the beam hit the elemental, and waves of metal condensed in flight. The first few blades were stopped dead in their tracks and thrown aside, but the last one, where the gnome had dumped a good portion of his pure mana, broke through and cut in the elemental before the blade was melted and dispersed.
Tesilim had gotten over his shock. It wasn’t the first time he had been wounded, but it was definitely odd, having felt so invincible so far only to have it end so abruptly. Either way, now he was mad. A dagger flew through the air and struck the ground a couple of feet from the elemental. Then Tesilim disappeared and appeared only to unleash a powerful water slash at the floating pizza slice.
The water slash came right after the metal blade from Alyx, who had to dodge blobs and pepperoni slices. It wasn’t as bad for him and Jasmine as the rest because they were further away, though it also helped that they now knew what to look for, unlike Tesilim, who had gotten hit by a surprise attack.
Annoyingly, the water slash also lost power as it made it through the vortex and only did a bit of damage to the elemental. At that point, however, Tesilim had already re-thrown his dagger and teleported out of the of some more pepperoni slices and, more importantly, out of the way of Drex’s breath weapon, which unleashed dozens of wind blades against the elemental, momentarily interrupting its rhythm. Sadly, as good as the attack was, it meant the drake was that much closer to vanishing.
On the other hand, however, it let Lili close in, and a black x struck the cheese slice, further interrupting it. Of course, that also had to trigger the elemental's next ability, and a dozen brown mushrooms appeared around it.
BOOM!
The mushrooms exploded, sending Lili and Rose, who had been mid-swing back. Lili tumbled through the ground, coming to an eventual stop, while Rose was slammed point blank into the ground, forming a crater.
Seeing the explosion, the rest of the party's worries grew, and they knew they needed to buy some time. Alyx unleashed another barrage of metal slashes, while Tesilim released water slashes and threw his dagger at the elemental, but never with the intent to hit, only to annoy. Then, once the dagger flew past, he teleported to it and repeated the action, each teleportation followed by a water slash. Naturally, Drex did his part and cycled through his breaths until he got the ice one and stood still, intending to spend all his mana on it.
Jasmine had reacted immediately after seeing the explosion and had sent a couple of healing beams to her friend. She was going to do the same for Lili, but the white-haired elf was in the process of getting up. The issue was that Rose wasn’t getting up, which meant she had been knocked unconscious. Jasmine knew they had to keep the elemental distracted, and she went on the offensive while also getting closer to the monster, so she made a more tantalizing target than her friend.
Lili was struggling to get on her feet as her head and mind hummed with pain, and her vision doubled. She just hoped the rest of the party could keep up until she rejoined and she reached for a healing potion.
They were on the last stretch. Alyx could feel it, so he kept the barrage going even as injuries quickly came for them. The party couldn’t dodge all the attacks originally meant for Rose and Lili. It had only been a few seconds since the explosion, but at the rate the elemental attacked, it was enough. So, Alyx got closer to the elemental to maximize the power of what he was about to do and took a couple of extra cuts doing so.
Then, once he felt he was close enough, he pointed his staff forward and unleashed the spell that he kept within. The bolt of lightning shot forward and struck through the elemental cheese dome, hitting it directly. The spell was a fully powered-up one because his staff worked much like Tesilim’s die. The strike was enough to momentarily stun the elemental, and Alyx waited for another water slash, a beam of light, and Lili’s incoming dark slash to strike before he activated the ring and finally felt the magic take hold as the space around the elemental twisted and in a blink it disappeared.