Lightning struck.
Or, to be more accurate, Rai did. A bolt of lightning shot from where he stood, leaving a crater behind.
20%. I’ll keep Stormflow at 20% until I kill it!
Rai had maintained Stormflow at around 10% thus far, only increasing it drastically when he killed the king monkey. Even when he rested momentarily after defeating the king, Rai had kept Stormflow running at 5% just in case anything went wrong during that time. The loss of Chak had shaken him more than he’d expected, and it showed in his cautiousness.
Now, though, Rai was maintaining Stormflow at a level proportional to 20% of his mana being released.
Sin watched as Rai dashed around the remains of the massive reservoir.
She’d held the leviathan in place the whole time, and now she was able to fight it directly.
A smirk crept onto her face.
Mirroring Rai and Sin in their excitement, Feris looked hungry. He’d been given more of a side role, but he would do everything he could within that role to ensure they won the fight.
The battle had begun.
Sin summoned mirror platforms wherever she stepped in the air, which gave her the ability to fight vertically. Right now, she wished that she’d learned Rai’s wind technique, but even that wasn’t refined enough to work all that well for Rai. He’d honed it a surprising amount, but Sin knew that Rai couldn’t fight as well in the air as he could on the ground.
She ran along the mirror platforms as she climbed through the air towards the leviathan.
It attacked.
But without its tentacles.
The leviathan’s mighty jaw opened wide.
Sin couldn’t believe her eyes.
Rows upon rows of jagged teeth lined the leviathan’s mouth. Each row contained sharp blades that she refused to believe were actually teeth in a living creature.
It dashed towards Sin.
*CLAANNGGGG*
The jaw shut itself where Sin stood. Sounds of metallic ringing echoed from within the creature’s mouth as its blades of teeth collided with one another.
Then another Sin flew up along another set of mirror stairs.
And another.
And another.
Multiple mirror Sins climbed through the air as they got closer to the leviathan.
*KKRRAAAA!*
It roared loud, but all of the clones hung on strong. The mirror platforms shattered behind each of them as they stepped further and further up.
The leviathan looked for the real Sin through its four eyes.
Then... it began trembling.
Tentacles sprouted out of the leviathan’s sides accompanied by a grotesque squelching sound. 5 of them on either side, and 2 from the front.
Wait... what’s it doing now?
The tentacles all formed a strange shape around the front of the leviathan. It seemed to be a circle with overlapping tentacles.
Then the tentacles began glowing.
Shit! It’s firing a spell!
“Rai!”
“I’m on it!” Rai shouted from his side.
He’d been climbing up towards the top of the leviathan using his wind technique.
Perfect.
Rai had the perfect angle to fire.
Flames flared out of Ghost as Rai swung the blade in a cross shape.
Two perpendicular arcs of fire shot out from Ghost. They were huge, and they were flying directly towards the leviathan.
Both flaming arcs seared through the air, and then soon after they burst through the tentacles that were forming into a circle. Blood spurted out of the ends of the chopped tentacles, but quickly stopped as the wounds cauterised themselves with the remnants of Rai’s flame.
The ends of the tentacles that had been chopped off fell into the water, and began sinking further into its depths.
*KKRAAAAK!!*
The leviathan roared, throwing Rai off balance. He’d managed to hold his position in the air using his wind propelling technique.
With the leviathan reeling from Rai’s attack, he saw an opportunity for Tullian.
“Tullian! Shoot one of its eyes out!”
Tullian looked up at Rai, then back at the leviathan. He aimed up at its eyes. There were two on either side, just above each other.
“Flame, wind, and thorns. Burn a vortex into this edge.”
Tullian pulled back the mana string, and an arrow made of thorns formed in its wake. The arrow was surrounded by the chaotic combination of the wind and fire auras that Tullian had called upon.
Both Lina and Amy used their buffing spells on Tullian now. Maya and Feris worked to keep the random tentacle attacks off of them.
Tullian’s eyes morphed into eagle eyes.
He could see it.
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The flight path that his arrow needed to take to strike the target.
*Thwip*
The arrow whistled through the air before planting itself into the top left eye of the leviathan. It made a satisfying squelching sound as the eye was pierced.
*REEEEE*
The leviathan thrashed about in its pool, causing Rai and Sin to fall back to avoid getting struck by the angry beast. It sprouted even more tentacles from the crevices between its carapace edges.
Wait... those gaps... I might have an idea. I need Sin for this to work.
Rai had a new plan.
The plan, however, would have to wait since the tentacles swung at Tullian.
Tuere!
The twins chanted at the same time.
A translucent wall with both gold and blue hues formed in front of the three of them. It blocked the tentacle lashes.
Lina had considered summoning her golem, but given that Rai and Sin were on the frontline, and her role was more for support, it didn’t make much sense to her to summon it now. The calmness that her divine form afforded her merely attested to those instincts. The golem would only complicate things further.
Lina focused on looking out to heal people, and keeping Tullian shielded and buffed.
Feris shot wind scythes at the stray tentacles that were striking on Lina’s side, leaving cuts in their slimy skins. He hadn’t drawn a weapon, but was using magic to defend Lina against any stray attacks like he was told. Regardless of how much Feris wanted to fight on the front line with Rai and Sin, he did his best to fulfil his role.
It was a surprise to the whole group to see how much of a team player Feris was.
“What the fuck are you all starin’ at?! Do your own jobs, fuckers!” He shouted at them.
Maya was about to giggle when the hairs on her arm stood up.
She flipped onto her hand, pushing up with said arm into a kick that knocked a stabbing tentacle away from Amy. With a twist, Maya landed back on her feet and renewed her focus.
Her concentration was the only thing she needed here, since all she had to do was defend Amy while she buffed up Tullian and kept him safe. Maya understood that her role was to defend, and she wasn’t going to let the team down now.
Hiron simply sat alone.
He sat, leaning against a tree that the leviathan somehow hadn’t destroyed yet.
“Whew. The fuck am I supposed to do?” He asked himself.
Hiron could use Judgement to defend the ranged attackers, or he could use Justice to attack with Rai and Sin. From what he’d seen of them before though... Hiron felt like there wasn’t much he could contribute on the frontline. He sighed.
Hiron slowly got up from the tree and went over to the ranged attackers.
He decided to just defend them whenever one of their defences on either side failed. Hiron acted as the contingency, for the time being.
----------------------------------------
Rai stared at the gaps in between the leviathan’s carapace. I know how we can kill this thing!
“Sin!”
“WHAT?”
“Get in close! Aim for the gaps between its armour! Those are its weak spots! The left side is open now, since it’s got one less eye! I’ll buy you some time!”
“Alright I hear you!”
Sin didn’t know exactly what Rai wanted her to do in that area yet, but if he’d figured out a weakness then she’d definitely exploit it.
Rai waited for the leviathan’s thrashing to calm down before he struck again.
Wait for it...
Wait for it......
Now!
*BOOM*
Lightning struck twice in a single day.
Rai had dashed through the air to a soft spot on the right side of the leviathan’s body. Not the gap that he’d seen earlier, but the fins that stuck out of the side of its body.
Rai swung Ghost as he flew past the fin, chopping a bit of it off. It was only possible to do so because of the flames emitting from Ghost that melted through the weaker shell covering the leviathan’s fins, compared to the harder shell that covered the majority of its body.
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
*BOOM*
He’d done it three times in a row following the first.
*Splurt*
Tentacles sprouted on Rai’s side. The leviathan’s attention was on him now.
Good. Now Sin just has to do her part. I’ll keep it looking at me for as long as I can, but she has to use the Queen’s Domain to cut those gaps open and crush its heart.
“It’s on you now Sin!”
----------------------------------------
Sin held her daggers at the ready.
Queen’s Domain.
Sin’s wrists began to feel hot, and the rest of her body felt a massive rush of power begin to boil within.
I... can’t feel it?
Unlike the wolves earlier, Sin couldn’t feel the leviathan’s heart. There was too much in the way, too much interference that muddied the mana in her Domain!
However, after she’d gotten closer to the gaps that Rai was talking about, Sin had an idea about how to feel the leviathan’s heart.
She had to open a way there.
If the outer shell of the leviathan’s body is stopping me from sensing any further inside, then I definitely have to break through it! That’s why those gaps are what Rai wants me to target!
Sin watched as Rai took the attention of the leviathan unto himself.
And he’s bought me time! Alright, let’s do it!
Sin ran as fast as she could along her mirror steps, with all of the ones behind her disintegrating into nothingness. Now that Rai had all the attention, Sin didn’t need her clones to run with her. She wasn’t as fast as Rai, but she knew that she could at least hit harder than him using her Domain.
Quickly, she made it to the gap in the leviathan’s carapace.
It’s... breathing...
The leviathan’s dark silvery-purple skin heaved back and forth between the extremely hard shell layers on either side. To Sin, it looked very leathery.
The shell must be what’s stopping me from sensing whatever’s within... maybe it has anti-magic properties somewhere, or an ability to block mana from breaking through.
*KAOOOO*
Okay now’s not the time to hypothesise, Sin!
Sin made a flooring attached to the leviathan’s body. Considering how small she was compared to the giant monster, it would consider her to be nothing more than a pestering fly on its back.
Sin stabbed her daggers into the skin.
Or... she tried to.
It didn’t work. Clearly.
The daggers weren’t enough to break through on their own.
Damn it!
Sin kept trying to stab them, but it just wasn’t working.
Alright... what now?... I don’t have a-...
An idea.
Sin used her Queen’s Domain to float her daggers out away from the skin. She placed markers on them so that she wouldn’t lose them.
This better work.
Her mana flared.
Sin created a line between the leviathan’s skin and her daggers, almost like a vacuum between them where they were the only objects within said line.
She made the leviathan’s skin the focal point. The gravitational centre.
Even though she was only just trying something new, it somehow came to her instinctively. It must be the Domain’s influence after etching itself into my mana...
Sin increased the gravitational pull of the leviathan’s skin equal to the pull of her daggers within that single line. She increased them both more and more. As much as her mana channels would allow. When Sin went to prod the line with a strand of mana in her Domain, she felt the tension within it. Mentally, she likened it to a taut elasticated band.
Sin released the pull that her daggers generated.
They stabbed straight into the leviathan’s skin, causing a disgusting squelch sound, and hot blood to spatter out.
Sin didn’t have time to care about the hot blood splattering out onto her face. It wasn’t hot enough to burn or even hurt her that much, so she ignored it. Sin had an opening now and she was going to take it..
Sin increased the downward force of her daggers, so they ripped a hole in the leviathan’s skin.
Blood poured out of it quickly, with a ton of pressure. It flowed past Sin into the reservoir. Sin only managed to hold on by using gravity on herself to stay on the platform that she’d created.
*KAAAAAAAA*
I have to do it now!
Queen’s Domain.
Her runes brightened. Their blurred reflection in the leviathan’s bloody skin granted Sin a kind of cold comfort.
Where... are... you...
I feel it.
The heart.
Sin held out her palm. She envisioned the leviathan’s heart within her hand. Even though the heart itself was far larger, Sin used this mental imagery for her spell.
She crushed her hand into a fist.
*Splatter*
Sin heard it through the leviathan’s open wound.
She felt it in her hands. The feeling of the leviathan’s leathery heart, with its inhumane biological structure getting crushed under the force of her gravity.
The leviathan wasn’t flailing around now.
In fact, it was falling.
Fast.
*BOOM*
Sin felt a cool relief over her body as Rai held her in his arms. She looked up at him. He looked back at her.
“You did it!” He said.
“Th-... Thank you!”
Rai looked out over the remnants of the reservoir.
Sin did the same while he held her.
They were stood on the edge of the practically destroyed area.
*CRASH*
The leviathan fell to the ground with a massive shockwave, causing the ground to splinter and the bloody mist to disperse.
Everything fell silent.
That was it. They’d won.