Zarian shoved his remaining free points into his Wonder Stat, pushing it from 267 to 302. He felt luckier, more faithful, and more perceptive of the supernatural. Then, with his Basic Aura Manipulation trait, he pushed aura hard into his Level 0 Wondrous Speed skill.
He ran faster than he’d ever ran before. His grimoires jerked after him as he became a human streak of luck and speed.
Spectral chains rattled. Metallic hums resounded. A swampy presence groaned. And Zarian grunted as he maxed his physicality and dodged the first solid attack from Metatron.
The Arch Cherub shot a beam from one of its many mouths. The radiant torrent of celestial energy scrubbed the air clean of anything that wasn’t good and struck the cavern floor where Zarian had stood a second ago.
The entire cavern chamber trembled from the single impact.
Rock, sediment, and many high-quality materials became sparkling vapor under a bright and thunderous flash as the celestial beam kept burrowing further down below.
By the time that single beam finished, Zarian could tell it dug thousands of feet into the ground and left its heavenly mark. If that attack had struck the village up above, multiple towers would’ve fallen and thousands of people would’ve died.
The Arch Cherub flapped its dozen wings. Rhythmic storm winds blew out in all directions, all howling deeply with a monstrous bass.
The beating wings and storm winds almost sounded like a choir of deep-voiced men providing the bottom tone of a song. The altos came from the many mouths that covered the hard, white flesh of Metatron’s spherical body.
By combining all its singing voices, the Arch Cherub produced a musical symphony that was like the orchestral tracks Zarian would hear in dungeon boss battles.
But unlike the superfluous mood music a dungeon could provide him, the Welcoming Voice of Good was singing to invade Zarian’s mind.
It had no shot of succeeding there. Zarian’s Thematic Law/Floridian Mindset denied the power of the invasive music. However, the Arch Cherub’s other magical traits and skills weren’t so easy to thwart.
More celestial beams shot at Zarian as he moved around at blurring speeds. His back itched as the bright and thunderous volleys destroyed the cavern floor behind him with rock-rumbling impacts.
Metatron’s beating gold wings sent more bass-filled storm winds around the cavern chamber to slow him down or throw him off his feet. Zarian clenched his jaw, leaned into the storm winds, and pushed through as he ran in zig-zagging patterns with the celestial beams trailing after him along with other mighty powers of the Arch Cherub.
That was all fine with Zarian as long as Metatron kept its attention on him and off the spectral spiders. The little guys were forming a decently large spell array with numerous arcane webs and gravity runes.
While the gravity spell was still a long-term project for Zarian to complete, his studies had borne fruit in other ways, such as teaching the spectral spiders to be their own little wizards and enchanters.
“Do not run,” Metatron said through multiple mouths. “You will not be destroyed, only harmed and incapacitated. Then you will be sealed for the greater good.”
“Fuck off!” Zarian shouted, throwing up double middle fingers.
Metatron concentrated even more on Zarian. More of its mouths switched from casually singing to shooting celestial beams.
With Metatron fully distracted, the spectral spiders triggered their trap. They created a purplish zone that encompassed the entire Arch Cherub.
Heavy gravity fluctuations crashed into the creature from below and knocked it toward the cavern ceiling. Its volleys of celestial beams and beating storm winds died down, letting Zarian plant his feet and focus on wizardry.
In the meantime, Hannah took her shot from the opposite side of the cavern chamber. A massive rectangular barrel fired with a loud thump that nearly challenged Metatron’s choir of voices.
The payload struck the Arch Cherub’s side with a brilliant eruption of heat and force that even Zarian could feel as the blast turned the entire chamber from being a dark space to being the brightly lit home of a solar flare.
Zarian and Para continued to prepare their spells while observing the results of Hannah’s big bang attack. The light and flames dimmed away. The smoke cleared.
Metatron remained unharmed.
The air around the Arch Cherub looked thick and wobbly. The platinum rings encircling its body were vibrating. They seemed to have conjured a barrier to defend from direct damage.
“Lay down your arms and your magic. You must surrender to the demands of the Ascended Heavens and the Greater Good,” Metatron demanded, its many mouths speaking with a tone that was more magical and divine. “There is no chance of you defeating me. Lessen your suffering and be sealed away. The Good Gods demand it so, and so it must be done.”
Metatron’s orders had no effect on Zarian and Para.
The spectral spiders, however, weren’t immune to the unyielding orders of divinity. Metatron forced many of the spectral spiders to stop their arcane webbing, and the gravity trap lost its consistency.
Without maintenance on the arcane webs and new gravity runes, the spectral spider’s ingenious spell array was breaking down fast.
Metatron kept making orders to crush the will of the spiders completely.
Eventually, the purplish zone dropped all the way, freeing the Arch Cherub. The horrific World Boss flapped its dozen gold wings, stirring up more bass-filled storm winds that propped up its song of heavenly wrath.
It sang with an invasive psychic voice. It shot volleys of celestial beams that curved through the air, now targeting Hannah’s makeshift cannons and Zarian’s position.
The Arch Cherub kept demanding for their surrender. It kept demanding for them to be obedient for the greater good.
Zarian remained disobedient, and he didn’t run this time. Instead, he and Para finished their preparations for a hardcore combination of wizardry. They stood their ground and went all in with their first big countermeasure.
“Void Authority! Void Layer! Black Fire!” Zarian shouted, his arms thrusting forward, his aura flowing hard, his mind burning.
“Quagmire Pit! Dread Mire Bite! Dread Mire Bellow!” Para shouted quickly, her hands flipping fast through the gator grimoire.
Casting two void spells with a black magic spell counted as three simultaneous spells. Para casting the folktale gator spells counted as one continuous spell.
Altogether, that was technically four spells happening at once. And unlike traits and skills from the Star System, multicasting wizard spells together was a ridiculously hard effort.
This was the furthest Zarian had ever pushed, which made Para’s help a great boon for him. Their combination of mental and aura enhancements supported the great workings.
Meanwhile, Hannah lost some of her cannons, but not all. She deployed more cannons that rolled in on rail-like tracks through openings in the cavern walls. Another newly made cannon fired with a quieter retort, which struck before Zarian and Para’s spells landed.
Hannah’s newest payload erupted with a warping effect. Metatron’s barriers distorted and unraveled as the air around the platinum rings twisted violently in on itself.
The flickering barriers didn’t fall apart completely. But Zarian’s void fire technique had an easier time chewing through what remained, especially with how the Void Authority spell enhanced the void fire attack to make it even stronger.
The aura-eating flames consumed the warped barriers. Then the void flames spread fast around the platinum rings and caught some of the gold wings.
Unfortunately, Zarian had to trade blow-for-blow to light Metatron up with the ghastly void flames.
The celestial beams were still raining down on him.
But that didn’t mean Zarian was going to take those hits flush.
A part of his Unraveled Mind split away and focused on pumping aura into his Level 0 Mystic Toughness skill, filling it with as much as it could take. Para toughened every part of Zarian’s body with her parasitic threads.
Then Zarian and Para helped each other even further. Zarian unraveled fractured parts of his mind until it could merge further with Paras consciousness. Para formed mouths on the sides of Zarian’s throat along with extra vocal chords.
Then they both cast Void Shout together, pushing to five simultaneous spells. Their combined vocals filled the cavern with a haunting and dreadful noise.
It was a sound born from the deepest depths of the void, where only the most horrific creatures of the abyss could lurk.
Zarian burned through so much aura that if it wasn’t for his high Mysticism stat, Aura Channeler trait, and wizard hat skill, he would’ve bottomed out instantly.
Instead, his aura endured while he attacked Metatron’s magical abilities with the void fire technique and Void Shout spell as volleys of celestial beams broke down and became weaker above him and Para.
Consequently, his Unraveled Mind was a swirling, liquidated, barely conscious mess that was spilling further and further into Para’s consciousness. Yet, regardless of the risks, the parasite did all she could to support him as Zarian did most of the grunt work.
At the very least, the spells from the hell gator grimoire were giving Metatron even more trouble.
The Arch Cherub couldn’t suffer the dangers of falling into a quagmire since it was hovering above the cavern floor. But the following Dread Mire Bite latched onto two platinum rings that were covered in ghostly void flames.
The platinum rings would’ve resisted otherwise if it wasn’t for the magic getting burned up inside their structure. The Dread Mire Bite tore away pieces from the two platinum rings, demolishing them and halving Metatron’s best defense.
The invisible predator splashed back down into the quagmire before resurfacing. Then the hell gator emitted a loud and explosive bellow that smashed into the bottom of Metatron’s body.
The Arch Cherub faltered. Its singsong demands for surrender and obedience fell silent. Its volley of celestial beams slowed, which was the most important part.
Void Shout was powerful, but it wasn’t perfect. A few celestial beams still broke through and delivered damage even while reduced from their former glory.
Zarian suffered some.
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Most of his flesh was fried to a crisp. The parasite material around his waist burned away, leaving only some smoldering threads. His new sunglasses melted off his face, and so did his eyes, forcing him to see the world through aura manipulation alone.
The ground under him turned into a vapor, dropping him into a short crater that disrupted him a little.
He fell to a knee as he felt the horrible judgment and punishment of good +7. It couldn’t invade his mind, but it could certainly leave a mark on his soul, and Para was suffering along with him.
A combination of physical and magical defenses protected him as best as they could. But the good +7 power of an Arch Cherub was almost undeniable.
Parts of his face scattered away into ash. His limbs felt heavy, laden with an invisible weight that made everything stiff. He felt like he was being petrified, trapped in his own body, pushed halfway toward death while being turned into a deep fried statue.
It was by far the most painful experience Zarian had ever faced. It was like he was being roasted alive while being forced to turn into a scorched rock that wouldn’t die, granting no escape from his suffering.
The sealing process Metatron was using on him was extraordinarily harrowing, as if the Arch Cherub wanted to be an absolute asshole and ensure maximum torment for the Dark Lord.
That was still not enough to stop Zarian, nor Para. They kept up Void Shout while multitasking more than any wizard at their level could imagine.
“Now it’s time to leave the pit and reveal yourself!” Para shouted from another mouth formed on Zarian’s shoulder. Multiple limbs sprouted from his back as Para flipped through the gator grimoire once more. Most of those extra limbs crumbled away, but Para still succeeded anyway. “With this folktale, I summon the great infernal predator, Dread Mire Hell Gator!”
Para, unfortunately, couldn’t make the gator as large and deadly as Zarian could, especially with the hell gator grimoire in the beta section. But at least she could finish the combo folktale.
A seven hundred foot gator born from the deepest depths of Hidden Hell crashed upward out of the Quagmire Pit. The monstrous hell fiend snapped its giant jaws on its natural enemy, breaking through the last two platinum rings to demolish its barrier defense completely.
The Arch Cherub screamed, hurt and enraged.
The hell gator’s six orange eyes burned with a furious and malevolent fury that wanted nothing more than to make the Arch Cherub suffer more. Six mighty legs scrambled at the hardened flesh of the Arch Cherub or at the surface of the quagmire. Its huge muscular tail thrashed from underneath, splashing infernal quagmire water everywhere, until the hell gator touched the cavern floor with a foot.
Then the hell gator swung its powerful body toward the cavern floor. It brought the panicking Arch Cherub down from the air to the floor for a kaiju-style body slam.
The entire cavern rocked. The Arch Cherub made a sound that was less elegant and more like a bestial scream that pierced the cavern air.
Hannah’s cannons readjusted their angles and drew an accurate bead on the Arch Cherub’s thrashing body. Then the cavern cannons unleashed explosive hell that hammered on Metatron’s exposed flesh.
Meanwhile, the hell gator lunged and readjusted the grip of its jaws. It sank a deeper hold with its large teeth on the bottom of the Arch Cherub.
Then the hell gator did the thing.
GIANT
DEATH.
ROLL.
The hell gator rotated like the biggest log anyone had ever seen. It even twisted around while turning at an angle.
Instead of rolling off to the side and fouling the aim of Hannah’s cannons, the hell gator rolled mostly in place, twisting the Arch Cherub about.
Angelic blood splashed onto the cavern floor in great heaps, and the hell gator let out a throaty bellow to celebrate the pain inflicted upon its natural enemy.
Metatron, the Welcoming Voice of Good, released a high-pitched scream from its remaining mouths. A powerful wave of psychic energy blasted outward in all directions and bashed against the hell gator’s body.
The furious creature from the depths of hell hesitated as the psychic energy invaded its own mind. Then the hell gator growled angrily in defiance of its mortal enemy. It slammed all six of its paws down on the cavern floor.
With an upward tilt of its head, the hell gator raised the thrashing Arch Cherub up into the air before slamming down. Metatron struck the cavern floor hard enough to form an enormous crater. Fissures spread in all directions from under Metatron’s body like an expanding spider web.
The hell gator raised up the Arch Cherub for another slam. Unfortunately, the hell gator couldn’t deliver on the promise of further harm.
While the hell gator was a powerful entity, Metatron was a big threat to civilization for a reason.
Angered, the Welcoming Voice of Good sucked in a huge breath through its many mouths. Then Metatron released a concentrated sonic howl on the hell gator.
The gator’s face was obliterated. Its scales peeled away like chips of paint. The skull turned into discarded fragments.
Roiling flames spitting out between the cracks in the gator’s body snuffed away. Boiling blood turned solid and cold, like lava glass, while raining across the cavern floor and nearest wall.
The hell gator died, completely blown apart by Metatron’s strongest ability, its unified voices turned into a sonic cannon of ultimate destruction. Even the wall behind the hell gator stood no chance. The Arch Cherub blew that down and created a tunnel that kept going for a mile.
The following silence was deafening for a few seconds.
Hannah interrupted the silence with more cannon fire.
The Arch Cherub flapped into the air and turned its attention on the cavern battery of makeshift artillery. Most of the guns were newly made, clobbered together like they came from a large scale and automated factory of a weapon-focused MacGyver.
Hannah kept the Arch Cherub distracted, pounding away at its exposed flesh and wings. Metatron retaliated with another mega sonic torrent. It blasted away Hannah’s entire line of big and loud cavern guns.
The quiet resumed once the echoes died down. The destruction was immense, but the cavern ceiling remained mostly held together.
There would’ve been a cave in by now if it weren’t for Empress Ruvaria. She kept the fight contained underground just as promised.
Zarian wanted to thank her for her help. He also wanted to cuss at her for enabling him to be a masochist again.
Maybe he should do both. He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t think straight after using five spells simultaneously. His mind was an unraveled mess, some of it fused closely with Para’s consciousness.
At least he could sneak in a dozen boxed meals. Para ate a bunch of fresh corpses from her pocket dimension.
They both needed the extra fuel and were thankful to Hannah for having sacrificed her remaining big guns to give them this time window to eat.
Meanwhile, parasitic threads ripped away the burnt and hardened flesh from Zarian’s body, which cleared the lingering effects of Metatron’s torturous attempt to petrify Zarian.
With Hannah’s weapons put out of the picture for now, Zarian figured it was the right time to swagger out of the crater he’d taken a pit stop in and reenter the picture. He had a bright smile, a full belly, and parasitic threads replacing all of his lost flesh.
Barely any skin remained except for half of his face. Para could only do so much to fix him after suffering so much severe damage. So she covered him with worming strands of her body and kept his organs from spilling out.
He looked like a living nightmare as he walked toward the damaged Arch Cherub. He was happy to see the void flames were still in effect, eating at Metatron’s outrageous supply of aura and harming it in some ways.
Maybe Zarian was both a masochist and a sadist, because he refused to use Overwhelming Darkness to finish this. He figured he still had plenty in the tank to keep fighting. And he was in a crazy enough mood to unleash his most creative tricks.
Zarian reached into the worming threads covering his chest and pulled out a skeleton from Para’s pocket dimension. The skeleton came from a kobold, and it wasn’t an advanced skeleton, so he had to maintain his necromancy spell to deploy it.
But that was okay.
The skeleton was covered in a unique set of runes Hannah had designed into a special array of enchantments.
Zarian tossed out half a dozen more skeletons with the same enchantments.
The skeletons assembled themselves from their piles of bones, looked at the Arch Cherub, and ran toward it. They made their excited bone-on-bone rattling sound as they charged full tilt at the angelic monster.
“Surrender,” Metatron ordered, sending out a wave of psychic divinity.
The psychic wave struck the skeletons.
And did nothing.
Skeletons didn’t have working minds even if they could act sentient. The psychic compulsion had no effect on the dead.
“Surrender!” Metatron screamed, uniting many of its voices.
“How about you go back to the heavens and tell your gods to fuck themselves?” Zarian snapped his fingers.
The skeletons blew up their legs and launched into the air like rockets. They latched onto the injured lower half of the Arch Cherub.
Then they erupted completely, the enchantments granting them some control of how and when they blew up. Naturally, they blew up all the way.
The suicide skeletons were just one of many heinous ideas Hannah had come up with that fitted Zarian perfectly. The damage wasn’t much.
But Zarian had a lot of spare skeletons with explosive enchantments on their bodies. He also had a lot of spare skeletons with other enchantments for more sacrificial plays.
He reached into the worming threads covering his chest and threw out more. The skeletons assembled themselves and ran merrily at Metatron to fulfill their purpose.
Metatron roared in anger.
Its gold wings glowed a brighter gold. Then the Arch Cherub showed off a new trick and phased out of sight.
Zarian felt a familiar ripple through the immaterial fabric that held reality together. Something nearby kept swimming through the multidimensional folds of the universe and beyond.
It was an ability similar to Void Waltz.
Zarian clucked his tongue. “Tut. Tut. That’s my domain.”
He cast Void Authority and yanked the entire Arch Cherub away from a nearby plane of existence and back to normal reality.
The angelic creature screamed in rage at the rude interruption, spinning about as a giant dervish ball of sharpened gold wings.
Metatron slashed through cavern stone and suicide skeletons in equal measure. Each time a suicide skeleton fell to the angel’s bladed wings, it exploded, even if it wasn’t for much effect.
Zarian smiled as he used Void Waltz in the middle of the chaos. He danced in and out of the void and in and out of the whirling edges of Metatron’s sharpened wings. He kept tossing out suicidal skeletons that exploded themselves on Metatron.
Meanwhile, Para formed blade-tipped tentacles from Zarian’s back. Each one glowed with the familiar crimson light of the Bloody Lifesteal spell. Then she took things a step further by coating the crimson tentacles with black and gray flames from the Black Fire spell.
Fully prepared, Para lashed out with her sharpened tentacles while maintaining two spells on her own, which led to the next phase of the battle came – a giant, spiraling melee.
Zarian kept on the move while in the thick of things, only one mistake away from getting cut down and petrified. His skeletons exploded all over as they chipped at Metatron.
Parasite tentacles coated in blood magic and dark flames whipped at the Arch Cherub’s body as Para chipped away at the World Boss’s vitality and life directly. Every time the massive wings chopped through the tentacles, Para grew more from Zarian’s back and kept going.
After a few minutes of this, it became obvious to Zarian that his skeletons and parasite seemed to struggle with leaving an impactful impression. He had the same issue. Without his darkness, he didn’t have a heavy hitter ability.
Zarian and Para kept dancing and chipping at their foe anyway.
Metatron kept spiraling and cutting.
The Arch Cherub seemed to have an endless supply of everything. Hell, its aura was still being burnt by void flames. Black Fire lit up its vitality. Bloody Lifesteal drained its life into Zarian.
Yet Metatron refused to slow down.
This was turning out to be a very long dance. The longest Zarian had ever faced.
Yet, he didn’t mind.
He was too invested now. He might as well play the endurance game and test himself like never before.
All in? Zarian thought with a savage and bloody smile.
He felt a hunger inside him that was stronger than ever. It felt like his body was burning from the inside out.
The next thought came from Para. Yes, all in!
For however long it took, Zarian, Para, and Metatron danced. Things seemed alright for Zarian until he later realized he had one major problem.
He didn’t have a big enough pool of vital stamina in this type of game, which was a big drain on his already damaged vitality.
Vitality was one half health, and one half stamina. Without Gilbert, Zarian’s vitality was sufficiently low in both. And Metatron refused to flag still.
Overwhelming Darkness would be the great equalizer right now.
It would win the fight easily.
Not yet, Zarian thought. I can still go further without Overwhelming Darkness.
This is becoming dangerous. But I will support you as always, Para thought.
We’re going to be the best wizards ever, Para, the absolute best, Zarian thought.
Yeah, he was a child of the ultimate nepotism, but that didn’t have to define him. He really liked being a wizard and wanted to push that as best he could.
Hell, he didn’t even care about the Throne of the Adventurer King.
He was here for the fun times, the big stakes, the adventures with his best friends, and seeing all that Infinita had to offer him. All while having a hell of a crazy time like any proper Florida Man.
Zarian let himself unravel a little further, dangerously so, to grant Para more power. Para took over more and more of his mind, which enhanced his body and made them hungrier.
He became less a man, and more of a beast, more of a suit of flesh for Para to wear. He practically put his life in Para’s parasitic hands just for a bit more juice, trusting her all the way.
Yet, that still wasn’t enough against the unyielding Arch Cherub.
So Zarian unraveled further.