Gerim continues to dodge and vault circles around the massive [Dawern]. The Demon shrieks and continues to give chase, completely ignoring the twin’s futile attempts to stab through its slippery leather hide. As I’ve observed, only Gerim’s quills have managed to pierce through. I have neither quills nor spines, so I’ll have to figure out some other way to help Gerim.

While my head spins with ideas for making myself useful, Hargoil launches a volley of scraping attacks on the [Dawern] each time it stops, managing to take off several of the appendages that carry it atop the sand. He’s tossed aside when the [Dawern] faces him with its tail end and wide pores along the side of its body.

Pores it can seemingly move anywhere, I note.

The pores blast out torrents of hissing acid at Hargoil, searing his armor each time he fails to dodge. I have to act before it does any more damage to Hargoil. Using a small amount of Essence from my Crystal, I begin to transform my hand. A mouth full of teeth breaks open on my palms as Essence seeps into the flesh and transforms it. Soon I feel as though it might burst from the power building up within me. I take in more Essence as soon as my new set of jaws is complete.

“Hargoil!” I call to him while charging toward the beast’s flank. “I’m going to distract it so you can escape.”

“Wait, no!” he protests.

My new maw opens wide, revealing a mouthful of long pointed fangs and a ready pint of Dawern acid. It’s a rushed transformation and the mother Dawern may even be immune to this level of acid, but it will have to do. I thrust my fists right through two of the large holes that run down the Dawern’s back. Acid explodes from me, flooding into the Dawern’s insides and even pouring out through the cracks in the hole.

There’s barely any difference when Gerim finally lands on the thing with both quills and his claws. With an almost casual swipe, his razor-sharp quills puncture the beast’s hide, slicing its top open. Even from the other side of the Dawern I sense his quills stab into the open wound, piercing its soft flesh like a thousand needles.

A few well-placed strikes should kill the Pink Crystal Dawern, and then my next level will come along. All that’s left to do now is keep up the fight and hope the others follow Gerim’s lead,I think to myself before continuing the attack.

The Dawern, however, continues to thrash and hiss, even with a flurry of quills sticking out from its insides making it look like a dried-up plant. The massive Demon refuses to die.

It turns its head around and spews forth a stream of burning liquid from several holes on either side of its mouth. The acid erupts out of those openings, striking Gerim and setting his desert cloak alight. It shakes Hargoil and I off as well, neither of us wanting to find out how potent the Dawern’s acid is. The twins fall behind Hargoil and ready long spines of their own, prepared to face the Dawern.

The point where Gerim filled the Dawern with quills begins to rip— tear open like there’s a zipper going through it— until the injured part falls off, including the Dawern’s head, face, and gaping mouth. The mass of flesh sliced off like bread flops on the sand, leaving what I’d expect from the insides of Demons like this.

Its midsection displays a sort of pale, black, viscous membrane. Behind this are sections, pumping and gurgling as organs function keep it alive. Within the murky dark there’s a brightening light, a sharp blue glow that shines down on all of us from above.

It burns brightly—like a flame rising to the heavens—and the light seems to draw the attention of the nearby Dawern as they pause in their pursuit, looking upward as if something great were happening.

The glow bursts out toward Gerim, doing nothing for a split second before a whirlwind takes the desert sand. The winds suck and cycle the hot desert sand, spinning it in a horizontal cyclone. The heavy winds pick Gerim up, taking his legs off the ground, so he desperately hangs on to a long, staked quill in the sand.

Magic!

The Dawern displays another frightening ability. Within its midsection the blue begins to fade—no, it blends with a rising Blood Orange light until a shade of purple hums outward. The purple swallows the murky dark of the midsection, and before our eyes the Dawern’s flesh begins to lunge forward, stitching and fusing itself together until a new head is formed.

“Fuck!” Hargoil curses, the twins beside him continuing to do their best to attack the Dawern at a distance but far more occupied with the creeping horde of small and medium-sized Dawern.

Fuck is right. We’re screwed, I curse, leaping away from the Dawern approaching me while trying to think of our next move.

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“We’re screwed if it gets Gerim,” Hargoil agrees as he turns toward Gerim, who’s still clinging to one of his staked quills in the air. “If we leave him there we might as well give up on returning to Calridian.”

“No,” I say in a tone that sounds like I’ve already made my final decision. My mind is already made up. But not returning to Calridian, not getting a reward for this... that’s the last thing I want to do.

“Then what are you going to do?”

My jaw tightens and I look down to see the two halves of my new teeth poking out through the gap in my palm, oozing acid. “We have to get Gerim out there. Calridian wouldn’t have sent us to hunt this thing if he didn’t think we could handle it... if he didn’t think Gerim could.”

Hargoil huffs but seems to agree. Staring out at the sucking cyclone, he says, “That’s if we can keep these ones off us.”

I glance back toward the Dawern minions that are drawn to the brightening purple light coming from within the new Demon head. The Dawern is now a few feet from where I stood before, and a number of its smaller brethren swarm the ground around me. Their little hands and mouths reach out and touch my legs as they crawl all over, but none actually make it closer.

Hargoil makes short work of them but doesn’t bother ripping out the Crystals within. That’s fine—saving Gerim from being sucked into the Dawern’s wide maw takes precedence.

“Keep them occupied, I’m going to try and distract it!” I say and sprint toward the largest danger I’ve come face to face with since the tusked Demon.

“And how well did that work out last time!” Hargoil replies as he and the twins continue their attack, using their long spines for ammo.

I waste no time enacting my rash plan. Leaping out with Essence-powered legs, I land atop the slippery Dawern. It doesn’t take any notice of me, but Gerim does. His cloak flails in the wind as he desperately grips the stack of quills keeping him from being launched into the Demon’s mouth. He nods and his fierce eyes begin to take on a blue glow, not unlike the one the Dawern had earlier.

More magic.

I take the sign and reinforce my arms with all the Essence I can reasonably spare from my Crystal—which is a lot less than I thought. Any further and the bulging muscles start to tear and rip. With my max strength in my arms and shoulders, I grasp on one of the putrid acid pores the Dawern has along its body and pull on the sides.

The reaction is immediate—the flesh begins to split at an alarming rate before tearing apart entirely and falling off of the Dawern like pieces of meat on a bone. With that hole exposed, I quickly leap away, my feet leaving small craters in the soft sand as I roll away and stand upright as Gerim finishes his spell.

The blue glow is bright enough that even the other Dawern turn to watch in awe as the new, long quills pop out of his back and float in front of him.

The quills are much longer than anything I’ve seen Gerim or Hargoil produce, and there are at least twenty of them. The magic doesn’t end there: from where I’m standing I watch Gerim mutter some words, but the Dawern’s agonizing cyclone deafens me to them. It abandons its own magic, finding it futile, and leaps at Gerim with its maw wide. The next moment the quills burst with a cool aura that wisps off the long stems.

Gerim wastes no time once his spell is ready. With a wave of his arm, each quill extends forward and strikes down at the incoming Dawern, impaling a good dozen holes through its body. The cool aura spreads, seeping into the Dawern’s otherwise oily hide until every impaled point has a wide, frozen radius.

The twins use this chance to shine. Up until now their sharp javelin throws have done next to nothing against the massive Dawern, each of their attacks repelled by the slippery film coating the Dawern’s body. But with that now frozen their attacks become deadly and effective, slicing through and piercing many more vital points along the creature.

But this alone still isn’t enough to fell the massive Demon. It screeches in agony and writhes, but its retaliation is swift. The air becomes heavy once more as it contorts, breaking away from its frozen flesh to get a good aim at Gerim. I sense the thick weight of mana in the air, knowing all too well that what comes after will be magic.

Gerim doesn’t stand around to find out. Having enough of a near-death experience, he sprints away, running toward us as we take care of the Pink Crystal Dawern. The mother, for the first time, doesn’t give chase. Instead, the air continues to thicken until there’s barely any left to breathe.

But I don’t need to breathe. So that means...

I don’t have time to complete my dreadful thought as it becomes a reality before me. Behind Gerim’s fleeing form, the injured Dawern rises to full height on its tail and blasts out a burst of energy into the air. The result is perspiration. Rain.

Acid rain.

I remember stories of how acid rain affects Humans—it burns skin, destroys stone. I’m not Human any more, but I’d never had first-hand experience when I was. I didn’t know until now that it’d hurt as much as it does.

The acid rips through my skin like razor blades, tearing the already weakened skin apart as I try to shield myself and take cover. My hands begin to burn as I try to ward off the pain, but it doesn’t matter because it keeps coming, burning and cutting away my hand’s strength.

I can still see everything going on in my periphery, so I’m aware the others are suffering similarly. But that’s not what I’m focused on.

There’s something—someone—beyond the rain and the massive Dawern casting the spell. Battling with the agonizing pain and trying to run out of the spell’s range, I can barely make the figure out in the air. It’s thin but broad with many legs and a... hammer?

The hammer extends in the flying creature’s hands and the head bulges, becoming fatter and wider. The wind starts to pick up the rain, blowing it toward us and increasing our torment, but it all ends with a single swing when the hammer strikes the Dawern in the center of its thick head.

Light travels through the Dawern, breaking it apart at its meaty sections. The Dawern lets out a low, strained groan as its body begins to split, but the creature strikes again and again, breaking down the massive Demon. But the damage isn’t over as one final strike sends the hammer deep inside the Dawern as its entire body collapses in on itself before collapsing into a crater.