Agony coursed through Elijah’s veins as the monster wrapped its unnaturally long arms around him. He flexed his every muscle, pushing against it with every ounce of Strength he possessed, but it was no good. The ashassin’s grip was like iron, and Elijah simply wasn’t powerful enough to escape.
So, he did the next best thing. His head darted out, and he clamped his jaws around the monster’s slim neck. Then, once he had a mouthful of ash, he ripped free. Of course, the nature of the ashassins dictated that they were more than capable of reforming from such an attack, but to do so, they were forced to dissipate into a more nebulous form. And that allowed Elijah to break free of the thing’s grip.
A second after he hit the ground, a powerful heal settled onto him, soothing the pain and repairing the damage wrought by the powerful monster. With that buoying Elijah’s confidence, he threw himself back into the fray the moment the creature reformed. His claws lashed out, ripping into the ashassin’s slender body. Every now and again, he’d hit something a little more solid than the rest, which elicited soundless howls of pain. That told him he was on the right track, which spurred him ever forward.
After all, he had his mission – to protect the eggs – and he refused to fail. Those little orbs of what appeared to be molten glass represented nascent life, and Elijah refused to let them be destroyed. Fortunately, his companions were onboard as well, and Sadie battled the two smaller ashassins on her own terms. Meanwhile, Dat and Kurik added their own contributions, with the former sending a volley of powerful arrows to tear through the trio of monsters while the latter busied himself with deploying one of his traps. Elijah didn’t recognize it as one of the dwarf’s usual designs, but he could feel the power radiating from the crystals he used to power it.
Hopefully, it would be strong enough to make a difference.
Elijah continued his battle against the ashassin, and all the while, the fight between the two titans below set the entire mountain to shaking. Those two creatures were so far beyond Elijah that the fact that they were both from a different world seemed secondary. If he had ever thought himself powerful, their strength would have served as a wakeup call. Thankfully, his occasional meetings with Kirlissa had disabused him of the notion that he was anything more than an insect in a world of gods.
But talking with a friendly dragon – no matter how powerful – was far different than seeing that pair of creatures battle it out. It wasn’t out of the question that one wrong move would see him become collateral damage.
Still, Elijah knew that to progress was to put himself in danger. He only hoped that he could survive long enough to see the fruits of his labor.
To that end, he levered the enhanced Strength of the lamellar ape to his advantage. And while he wasn’t quite as powerful – on the whole – as the ashassin, he quickly discovered that he could stand toe to toe with the thing in a physical confrontation. The only downside was that, for every second the thing touched him, his flesh was turned to ash. Thankfully, Ron was there to mend the damage, but healed or not, that didn’t make it any easier to endure.
Sadie had it easier, if only because the two other ashassins weren’t quite as strong as the one Elijah faced. Quantity often had a quality all its own, but when it came to sheer power, fighting one strong opponent was far more difficult than fighting a pair of comparatively weaker foes. Especially when her personal shield kept them from touching her.
Constitution played a role in helping them resist the effects of the ashassins’ touch, but they were both a long way from being able to endure it without issue. So, aside from having Ron there to reverse the effects, simply not being touched was the best defense they could muster. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t possible for Elijah.
So, he marshaled his willpower and pushed the pain aside as he steadily ripped through the monster before him. It did little good, aside from prolonging what Elijah was beginning to think of as the inevitable. They’d learned that the ashassins’ ability to reform after taking damage wasn’t infinite. It depended on ethera, and eventually, it would run out. However, it seemed that Elijah’s foe was a long way off from that mark.
It made him wonder which would run dry first – Ron’s or the ashassin’s supply of ethera. Still, the pain Elijah experienced from being repeatedly turned to ash was nothing compared to what he’d endured within the amalgam of necrotized flesh he’d battled in the Underrealm challenge, and it certainly didn’t compare to being ripped in half.
Silver linings, he supposed.
The battle itself wasn’t technically impressive. Nor was it as satisfying as many Elijah had fought. There was something so inherently disappointing about ripping into his enemy and getting nothing but a cloud of ash for his trouble. The beast within him wanted to rend flesh and see splattered blood, and the dragon was frustrated with the ashassin’s stubborn refusal to submit to the dominant force Elijah represented. His human side was no less annoyed, but more because he could read the writing on the wall. He knew that, unless something changed, and soon, he would begin to wear down. Winning, it seemed, just wasn’t possible.
No sooner had that morose thought settled onto Elijah’s mind that Kurik shouted, “Done! Bring it this way!”
Elijah didn’t hesitate to comply, and a second later, he’d wrapped his arms around the monster’s slim waist. He twisted like a wrestler, yanking it from the ground and launching himself backward. A second later, he released the surprisingly light creature, and it flew in Kurik’s direction.
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The dwarf’s eyes widened, but he held his ground. Just before the ashassin reached him, a bright, blue light flashed, and fingers of ice erupted from the floor. They wrapped around the ashassin in mid-air, then squeezed. It tried to diffuse into a cloud of ash, but the icy claw pulsed with enough ethera to foil that effort.
Then, Kurik pulled back his bow string and let loose a white arrow bristling with power. It hit the icy fingers, and for a second, nothing happened. Just when Elijah was wondering what the point of it all was, an explosion of ethera rippled through the area. However, that shockwave of pure energy never reached him. Instead, it stopped after only a few feet, then imploded.
Like a black hole of ethera, it collapsed onto the ashassin, pelting the creature with shards of ice. The thing tried to fight free. It attempted to disperse into ash. But its every attempt was fouled by the sheer potency of the magic at play. Finally, its efforts slowed, and the pressure of the imploding energies folded in on it. Then, after only a second more, the energies disappeared, leaving only a tiny sphere of dirty ice behind. It clinked to the ground, then rolled to a stop only a foot or so later. Then, it rapidly melted before evaporating into nothing.
“What the hell was that?” Elijah breathed, not even noticing the still-ongoing battle between Sadie and the other two ashassins. What he’d just witnessed defied everything he understood.
“Counter trap,” Kurik grunted. “Not gonna get into the technicals of it, but it takes creatures of ethera and counters ‘em. New skill evolution, and a good’n.”
“Damn right,” Elijah said. “Can you do that to the others?”
Kurik shook his head. “Cooldown’s too long,” he said. “But I can cook somethin’ else up. Gimme a sec.”
With that, he started pulling things out of the pack he’d deposited onto the ground. As he did that, Elijah turned his attention to the other fight and quickly surmised that he was best served by the Shape of Venom. So, he initiated the transformation and raced across the intervening distance and leaped upon the back of one of the creatures. It was so focused on Sadie that it never even reacted until Elijah delivered an Envenom. Before it could respond, he leaped free and did the same to the other creature.
However, he quickly discovered that it was the wrong move.
The ashassins immediately burst into a giant cloud of ash that soon began swirling around the room like a tornado. Elijah countered it by shifting back into his human form and casting Calamity, but as powerful as that spell was, it could do nothing to neutralize the storm of ash.
And where that cloud touched, it bored into them and tried to convert them to ash. It wasn’t as powerful as the concentrated touch of one of the fully formed ashassins, but it made up for that with sheer pervasiveness. It didn’t impact only one person. Instead, it affected them all.
Ron worked overtime in an attempt to mend the damage they all suffered, but it quickly became clear that his spells – as powerful as they were – just weren’t up to the task. So, Elijah shifted into his human form and threw out as many heals as he could. Still, they barely kept up.
Fortunately, Sadie was mostly protected because of her shield, and she’d also used her other shield spell to protect Ron. However, that still left Elijah, Dat, and Kurik fully exposed. And it was at least as agonizing as enduring the touch of the most powerful ashassin.
That was when Dat said, “Get down!”
Everyone dropped to their bellies, and a second later, a burst of purple light ripped through the area. The windstorm ceased, and the ash drifted to the ground. Elijah had no idea if the reprieve was temporary, but he was more than grateful for the chance to catch up on the healing. A few seconds later, he saw that the news was both good and bad. Dat’s ability – whatever it was – had brought an end to the storm of ash, but it hadn’t killed the creatures, as evidenced by the fact that the ash had slowly started clumping together. Soon enough, the creatures would reform.
Thankfully, they had Kurik on their side.
He retrieved a contraption he’d just pieced together and threw it at the largest gathering of ash. But it didn’t do anything.
“Kurik…”
“Wait for it.”
“I don’t think –”
“I said to wait for it!”
A second passed. Then two. Until finally, just as Elijah was about to say something else, the contraption lit up. At first, it didn’t seem that anything had happened, but then, the air shimmered, and a hundred beams of pure ethera slammed into the various clumps of ash. After only a second, they froze into blocks of ice, and Kurik shouted, “Break them!”
Elijah was more than happy to comply. So was Sadie. Together, they raced around the room, shattering ice – Elijah in his lamellar ape form, and Sadie with her sword – until, at last, they all received a wave of experience that announced that the creatures were dead.
It was only then that Elijah realized that the sounds of battle from outside had ceased. Fearing the worst, he ran to the door and craned his neck to peer at the lava. There was nothing there.
“What the…”
Only then did a tentacle emerge, followed by a dozen more, and then, the kraken appeared. Its enormous and bony head was deeply scarred, and one of its six eyes had been ruptured. But it was alive.
Clearly, the umbrafyix was not.
“DRUID. ARE THE EGGS SAFE? IS THE PORTAL STILL OPEN?”
“Yes on both counts,” he answered. “But there might be a problem. The portal’s only so big, and you’re…uh…you probably won’t fit…”
As it turned out, that was not an issue. Elijah had no idea what kind of spatial shenanigans were at play, but when Cinderath pulled itself up to the platform, gathered the eggs, and went through the portal, it just disappeared inside. His Mind whirled to try to make sense of it, but nothing he saw followed the laws of physics.
“Magic, I guess.”
That was his go-to answer, it seemed applicable to the current situation.
“THANK YOU, DRUID. YOU ARE AN HONORABLE ENTITY. IF YOU EVER COME TO IGNIS, SEEK ME OUT.”
“Uh, sure,” Elijah said to the creature as it slowly disappeared into the portal. It was missing nearly half its tentacles, and many of its wounds were even more severe than normal. So, he attempted to cast a heal on it, and though the spell landed without issue, it was nothing compared to the thing’s sheer vitality. That, as much as anything, told Elijah just how far above him Cinderath was.
The creature didn’t say anything else. Instead, it wrapped a tentacle around the eggs and, only a few moments later, completely passed through the portal. That left Elijah and the others to deal with the aftermath of the battle.
“You guys feel that?” Elijah asked as the earth rumbled.
“I think we should run, bro.”
Elijah didn’t dispute that supposition, and together, everyone raced across the platform and to the nearest bridge.