Joseph

The “rainforest” was a surprisingly dry place, more akin to the inside of a kiln than anything else. Of course, that was only due to the titanic monster looming overhead, but there was still something vaguely irritating about the title’s lack of accuracy.

Though the name of the monster that loomed overhead was equally strange.

Accelerated Deforestation (manifested wildfire), Level 65 Nation Boss of Flame

A hundred meters tall being of pure flame towered over everything, even the giant trees of the primordial forest barely reaching up to its hips … when they still stood, that was.

Because anything within half a kilometer of it started to dry out, and anything within a hundred meters simply ignited, even if had somehow managed to avoid catching fire up until that point.

There was only a single part of his body that was not made of earth and stone, the scrap of paper that gave him life, acting as his brain, heart, and in a certain interpretation, soul, but that was [Fireproof]. And everything else, well, his foe would have to be a whole lot hotter before his body ignited.

Another flaming fist slammed into him, causing Joseph to crash through another massive tree, embers clinging to his “skin” igniting it while he climbed back to his feet and started to charge at his foe.

They really weren’t all that different, all things considered.

Magical beings, forged from the elements, neither able to truly hurt the other.

But unlike him, the fiery giant attempting to crush and/or burn him was stupid. And about to die. Because just like all the other fire monsters in this particular challenge, the Nation Boss of Flame was vulnerable to being extinguished.

So when several dozen student mages had been sent through the portal to the rainforest with him, all they had to do was take shelter behind him and start casting rain spells.

The clouds had already covered the sky, but he was yet to feel a single drop of water fall upon him, all of it was simply evaporating as it struck the Nation Boss’ shroud of heat, forming a vast fogbank, but bit by bit, slowly, the water was coming lower.

It was only now that the monster seemed to realize that repeatedly beating him into the ground was getting it nowhere and attempted to simply kick him out of the way, but the [Roots of the Mountain] tethered Joseph to the ground and caused the fiery titan to stumble and lose its balance, which he took as his chance to leap onto its chest, [Armory of Gaia] manifesting a massive warhammer in his hands which, backed by [Titan’s Fist], allowed him to hurl it onto its back with such force that it left a deep crater … and caused a massive explosion when all the dust that had been hurled into the air by the crash ignited.

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Anyone else in his position, save another ancient or maybe Tristan, if it was the first hit he took in the fight and he still had his [Diplomatic Immunity], would likely have been taken straight out of the fight.

Joseph simply picked himself off the ground, drew even more deeply upon the [Might of the Earth], and [Avalanche Charge]ed straight back at the monster, leaping onto its chest and starting to rip into it, grasping the “solid” fire that lay beneath its flickering exterior just as the first raindrops began to fall, instantly flashing into steam as touched the flames.

Yet the flames weren’t untouched either.

Fire and water clashed, filling the air with steam that would boil any human that touched it alive in an instant, but Joseph merely tightened his body around his animating core, keeping the moisture out, and continued to tear into the monster.

Until it rolled over on top of him and started to focus all its heat onto what would be the “stomach” on a human.

Once again, while both of them might be “golems,” at least in a certain defintion of the word, only one of the pair was stupid.

Joseph stopped trying to rip bits out of the monster’s body and instead found himself some handholds while he planted his feet on the ground and channeled [Roots of the Mountain] as strongly as he could, trying to hold the monster down. And it let him.

They stayed like that, the steam growing thicker and thicker around them, the one golem trying to incinerate the other, and getting nowhere as it was slowly extinguished, being reduced to a black, porous substance that crumbled beneath his hands, merely a skeleton.

When it chose to pull back, there was nothing Joseph could do to stop it, trying to keep a hold of it caused the rock to fall apart, even his fingers ripping through the substance as though it were soft bread.

The monster’s sheer fury was palpable as it stood straight, ready to launch itself at the mages. [Defender’s Mind] not only told him that was going to happen, but also how it would come to pass.

As big as the monster was, “fast” wasn’t an attribute that could easily be applied to it.

So he started clambering up its leg, pulling himself up too quickly for his handholds to disintegrate under his weight and by the time it realized it needed to do something about him, he’d reached the hole he’d dug earlier, planted his feet at the bottom and pressed his hands across the top, swelling in size as he channeled [Eartshaping Body] and drew so deeply upon the [Might of the Earth] that it would actually go entirely dormant in a few seconds and remain that way for hours afterwards.

The Nation Boss began to paw at its own torso, furiously attempting to dig him out … but before it could get anywhere, it tore in half. The bit with the legs hit the ground and broke further apart, while the top was practically reduced to powder when it slammed into the dirt from a considerably higher point.

And finally, finally, there were cores, exposed to the world and ready for him to smash. Fist by fist, blow by blow, he wiped the Nation Boss of Fire from the face of the Earth.

It was funny, in a way. He might have nearly been on the other side of the planet, but even so, here he was, protecting the people of Prague, and its Jewish inhabitants in particular.

How were the other doing, at any rate? It had been hours, shouldn’t some of them have also won?