Once the quest notification appears, I glance at the abomination. From the 'shoulders' up is a tree monster's face, the upper body is that of an abyssal, and the lower body is from the gnoll chieftain. Its final form is 5 meters tall, giving off an aura of oppression, nature, and the deep abyss simultaneously, but I can also feel that these auras are clashing with each other.
- Abomination Level 7 (Journeyman Boss)
HP: 700/700
MP: 100/100 -
"Shit," that is the only thing that comes from my mouth. Xelyphe has the same look of fear on their face as I do. 'What are we going to do?' is the only question that runs through my mind now. Thankfully, the barrier between us and it is still in place, but it is slowly battering at it, trying to free itself.
"What's the plan, Drake?" My family turns to me as my father asks the question with his guttural speech.
"I don't have much mana left; I only have 37 left in my pool. The best bet is for me to support and heal those who need it. Otherwise, I will just stand in the back and try not to get in the way."
"Nothing else?" My father further prods.
"I don't know. I haven't seen the full extent of your abilities as you are. Is there a limit? Should I be worried about you being weakened? What should I expect?"
Taking one of his taloned hands, he gently scratches his chin, "That is a good point; we didn't want to freak you out when we initially got here, so we have been hiding something from you, but since the waves, we have slowly been letting some of those secrets go. There is no point in keeping them if you are going to freak out every time something related to a bloodline happens around you."
Scowling at him for jabbing me about going into a rage for being lied to for years, he continues, "Both your mother and I have high-level bloodlines, but that doesn't mean we can use our abilities as we please. Most of the time, we need a trigger to take these forms. So, it is mostly of an unconscious decision that we transform."
"Me talking about your ex-wife caused you to become like this," I gesture at him.
Waving his hand back and forth in disagreement, "No, what she did to you and my wife caused me to go into a rage. I am very protective of those I call my own." At the end of this sentence, a growl enters his voice.
"Having to deal with her is one thing, since I knew that Xelyphe was not of my blood, but knowing what she was doing to you, keeping you in a torturous state of needing multiple surgeries even though she could have fixed it was my trigger for my rage." My mother's whisper reaches my ears.
"How did you get control of yourselves then?" I asked, examining the barrier to ensure the abomination hadn't broken through yet.
"You've got to let off some steam now and then. We found some gnolls wandering this forest and took some of that anger out on them. It wasn't even a fair fight. We don't have long with our current selves, about another 5 minutes before it wears off."
"When can you transform again?" I asked.
"Probably not for another month or two. It takes a lot of energy to transform into these forms." They both explain.
Right, as they say, cracks start to appear around the barrier. The abomination has been beating it with such abandon that bloody streaks have begun to creep down the sides of it where its 'hands' strike.
"What can you do in these forms?" I ask.
They smile at me and jointly say, "Let us show you."
It doesn't take long before the barrier is destroyed, and the abomination is out. At that exact moment, my father let out a draconic roar at its face and then charged wings beating behind him to give him an extra burst of speed.
As he is about to slam into the monster, Mother appears from behind it and starts to gouge out the eyes along its back. I am keen to see if there is any way that I can help the two of them at this moment. Seeing they have things under control, I rest, but right before I can lean against the wall, Xelyphe asks me a question. "Isn't its health supposed to go down after all the attacks mom and dad throw at it?"
Looking closely at the boss, I see damage accruing on its body, but it doesn't take long for it to heal.
- Abomination Level 7 (Journeyman Boss)
HP: 675/700
MP: 100/100 -
Looking one more time, a couple of seconds later,
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- Abomination Level 7 (Journeyman Boss)
HP: 685/700
MP: 100/100 -
It's healing itself somehow. Looking for the reason, I cast my gaze back at the ritual. From what I can see, the ritual still feeds mana into the abomination. "It must be using the remaining mana from the ritual to heal itself. We need to eradicate the ritual!" I inform them.
"What do I need to do?" With a bit more enthusiasm than expected, I tell them what we need to do. Getting to work quickly, I take one side, and Xelyphe takes the other. Wherever we see wet blood, we step closer to the center and destroy the channels.
Digging, scuffing, and just trying to wreck the channels are slowly working; the healing is slowing down, but it still isn't enough to prevent my parents' transformation time from lapsing. Continuing, I dig out one interestingly shaped rune. The moment it is disconnected from the rest of the ritual, there is a massive mana fluctuation, and the vortex shrinks by 20%. With that, the healing has drastically reduced, and the wounds take longer.
It takes us another precious minute to shrink the vortex by another 10% of its initial volume, but that is when I see one more of the same runes I had just taken out that caused a drastic decrease. Quickly approaching it, I start to gouge it out from the earth. By the time that is completed, the vortex has shrunk so that more wounds appear on its body. Confused about why the vortex is still there, I look frantically around. A full minute and a half pass before I spot another one of the runes, and I dig that one out as soon as possible. With this final rune, the vortex dissipates, and no more energy is supplied to the abomination.
During the entire time we have been working on destroying the runes, the abomination's health has been going down with the removal of the first major rune I removed.
- Abomination Level 7 (Journeyman Boss)
HP: 584/700
MP: 100/100 -
I ask Mom and Dad, "How much longer do you have on your transformations?"
"A minute and a half," Mom replies,
Thinking about how much damage we need to do in a minute and a half, I look at Xelyphe, "We need to get in there and start damaging it." My first thought is to cast nature's grasp underneath its feet; following the idea, I look to see where Mom and Dad are.
Dad is floating in front of it, barely off the ground, while Mom seems to be phasing in and out of the shadows while slashing with her claws. When she approaches the abomination on her passes, she isn't touching the ground but, from what I can tell, appears to be flung out of the shadows like a slingshot.
Smiling at the two of them, I quickly cast the spell and watched as lacerations started to carve their way along its legs. I made sure to cast it in a location where if Xelyphe wanted to, they could go and start slashing the back of the legs.
The damage on its legs worsened as it moved forward and backward until most of the brambles around it had been trampled into the ground, preventing further damage from that section of brambles. By the time it stopped taking damage from the brambles, an additional 80 points of damage had been dealt to it from the brambles alone, including what everyone else was doing. The abomination's health had dropped to below 200 points.
- Abomination Level 7 (Journeyman Boss)
HP: 144/700
MP: 100/100 -
When the brambles were up, I didn't cast any more spells just in case I needed to cast a shield or a healing spell on either Mom or Dad. I am glad I held back because the moment its health dropped to less than 20%, its mana plummeted to 0, and out of the two eyes in its palms, beams of light converged and slammed into Dad's chest. And from that one hit, his health dropped to 124/500. The power of the beams launched him across the fort, with his back slamming into the wall. As he slumped down to the ground, his transformation faded. Seeing his transformation fade, I look at Mom and notice her is fading, but not as quickly as Dad's. It probably has to do with the damage he took accelerating the pace.
With that information, I focus more on what is to come. The abomination recognizes that one of its enemies is down and swings its meaty hands at Xelyphe. Helping by providing a shield, the hand slams into it, and not even a second later, the shield shatters; unable to dodge the blow, Xelyphe is hit with incredible force and is forced to take a dozen steps back, barely avoiding falling.
Inspecting my party menu, I see that the amount of health lost was not much on their end, but the force still caused a larger opening for the abomination to move around in. Glancing around my surroundings, I find Mom off to one side. The transformation has taken its toll on her. Her hands are on her knees, and she is gasping for breath. Dad still hasn't gotten up from where he was thrown, and Xelyphe is far enough away that the current closest target is me.
Panicking momentarily, as the abomination turns its gaze toward myself, I cast the first spell that comes to mind at its giant body—arcane shot. The bolt hits the dead center of its chest. And because it was in mid-step, it didn't have its entire balance, causing it to take a lumbering step backward into a portion of brambles that hadn't been ground down.
Its legs are barely able to hold on after all the damage that has been inflicted on them. Lacerations cut bone deep from everyone's attacks and might collapse if one more well-placed strike hits its legs. Sadly, I don't know if I am accurate enough to hit its legs other than through pure luck.
I continue casting my spells, though, hoping to deal enough damage to down the enemy or stall so someone else can kill it. I start to run backward away from the monster, and all the while, I am casting. After the initial backstep it took due to my spell, it regained its balance again and started to come towards me faster. I landed another two shots while running, bringing the abomination down another 40 points of health.
- Abomination Level 7 (Journeyman Boss)
HP: 76/700
MP: 100/100 -
Looking at my remaining mana, I can only chafe. I am down to my last 18 mana. I could cast more arcane bolts at it, but it has been gaining on me this entire time. Looking around for something to use, I spot the sword of the warrior we had slain before this boss fight started. Considering my lack of skills in swordsmanship and the large abomination before me, I quickly picked up the sword.
"All you have to do is hit its legs and dodge," I tell myself as it approaches closer and closer. As it gets within its striking range, I decide that instead of running away from it, I run towards it and through its legs. Not wanting to think what might be underneath the loincloth I am about to pass under, I barely manage to avoid its swiping hand. Ducking low, I was able to get behind the abomination. Instead of turning around, it falls onto its hands, fingers wrapped around the eyes to prevent them from being damaged with its weight against its hands. In a quick movement that I had the fortune of not being in front of, it had thrust one of its legs into a kick, sending dirt and viscera flying.
Seeing an opening, I can only apologize in my head. I thrust forward with the sword.