The monster brought up difficult memories for Rieren. It was one of those rare ones she had fought and defeated in her past life, but also, one of those she had promised herself never to face again if she could help it.
She certainly couldn’t help it now.
The Abyssal was a tall, dark, humanoid figure. But that was where its similarity to anything human ended.
Its long legs were about twice as tall its thin, skeletal torso with its ribs poking out everywhere, each leg ending with spikes and wet flesh oozing out dark blood. At the top end of its torso wasn’t one pair of arms or even two. Instead, it had dozens upon dozens of appendages spreading outwards, claw-tipped and hook-ended.
Instead of a head, it had nothing but a small fountain of dark blood. Not that it didn’t have any heads at all. Several of the arms sprouting of its back were tipped with different monstrous heads screeching, growling, or spewing smoke, fire, or other dangerous fluids.
“What in the world is that thing?” Amalyse asked.
“A Blisterskull. Likely a B-Grade one. Except…”
“Except?”
“It matters little within the Abyss.”
“What? What does that even mean?”
Rieren didn’t get to clarify to Amalyse. Several of the heads on the Blisterskull’s heads pointed at them and roared. Then it charged.
It wouldn’t have been worrying normally. The distance between them and the monster ought to have been enough for them to prepare. But it closed the space in less than a breath, its movement more rapid than Rieren remembered.
“Prepare yourselves,” Elder Olg shouted, all trace of the humour he had when he had first arrive giving way to a deadly seriousness. “Here it comes!”
He acted fast. As the monster got into range to attack them, he had shifted himself so that he was before Rieren and the others. His Ashflame flared, a wall of silver fire materializing just a pace ahead and crystallizing into a solid, glinting surface.
It was just transparent enough for Rieren to see what the Blisterskull did. The ends of several more of the shoulder monster’s appendages had changed into things that befit striking. Some had become vicious claws, others turning into clubs and various weapons. One even had a spiky, bony protrusion like a pick.
Just as Rieren remembered, the Blisterskull had the ability to change its physical form like the Malomen Shifters could. But this monster’s ability was limited to the end of its arms, though the sheer variety of its potential transformations was where the true danger lay.
The Elder’s barricade didn’t last. One combined swing from several of those arms crashed through the frozen flames as though it was nothing more than a partition made of paper.
Thankfully, with the Elder’s warning still ringing in their ears, Rieren and the others had all fallen back. Thus, they were spared the need to get impaled by the frozen Ashflame spikes flying everywhere.
The Blisterskull attacked Elder Olg, who hadn’t moved from his position. He hadn’t been bluffing when he had said the monster was difficult to deal with. It launched a blistering salvo of punches, swipes, and slashes with its many arms.
Olg had summoned his Ashflame Armament in an attempt to fight the monster toe to toe. He barely managed to keep up. While his frozen Ashflame shield caught several of the monster’s blows, he never got in a counterattack with his silver, flaming spear. More often than not, he was using the spear to deflect blows that his shield couldn’t get to.
Rieren was mostly just impressed that he wasn’t being forced back as fast as she had expected. There was an obvious difference in their physical strengths. Even then, he was—
She thought too soon. The monster, likely already tired of the ineffectuality of its direct attacks, now added a rotation of things that couldn’t easily blocked by shields and spears. Its fountaining blood sprayed a vicious flare of blood. One of the other appendages rose high and spit out globs of black flames.
Elder Olg summoned the proper defence against those attacks. Granting himself space by leaping back, he summoned another wall of frozen Ashflame, which was effective against the blood and the monster’s black fire.
The Blisterskull was relentless, though. Along with its new attacks, it kept attacking with its powerful fists, claws, and all else. At this rate, even the Elder would be overwhelmed.
“We need to help him,” Amalyse said. “But…”
Rieren understood her hesitation. It was her main concern as well. The monster was too powerful. If they had thought the Aetherian at the dead Anachron’s chamber had been insurmountable back then, this Abyssal was an order of magnitude worse. Even with Reaver Stance’s boost, Rieren doubted she would have lasted long against that thing.
“How is it that strong?” Avalien asked. There was a growing glimmer of fear in his eyes. “We saw a B-Grade monster. Bad as it was, it wasn’t this terrible. Is it A-Grade?”
“The Abyss,” Rieren said. “All Abyssals are empowered in the Abyss. There is a great abundance of Abyss-Aspected Essence, which naturally boosts all of Abyssals’ prowess. An E-Grade one would fight with the strength of a D-Grade one and so on.”
“So that thing is essentially an A-Grade monster?”
Rieren nodded grimly. “Nearly.”
They couldn’t hope to face it here and hope to win. Not even with Elder Olg in tow. The only reason they had been able to finally kill the Fellserpent was because Rieren had recognized that it was a mere puppet and, as such, she had been able to cut its strings. This creature had no similar weakness.
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Nearly overwhelmed by the Abyssal, Elder Olg had once again created some space between himself and his monstrous opponent. Instead of diving in to fight the monster by himself as before, he summoned Foxwolf, pulling half of his shoulder clean off. Ah. That explained the state of his robes.
Brilliant Ashflame went up immediately before much blood could come out of his wound. But it was still debilitating. He wouldn’t be moving his right arm at all for a while.
It didn’t matter for the moment. Foxwolf was one of the most powerful True Summons Rieren had even seen, even if Elder Olg wasn’t anywhere near the peaks of cultivation. The Spirit Beast clad in silver flames rushed at the monster like a streaking comet, slamming into the Abyssal with enough force to make it stagger several steps back.
The Blisterskull tried to counterattack with its many appendages, but Foxwolf moved around too fast. It revolved around with ground-scorching speed, shooting in to strike the monster’s undefended legs and chest on occasion.
But the hit-and-run tactics didn’t have a great deal of effect. Aside from being overwhelmingly strong, it was unbreakably resilient as well. The Spirit Beast’s silver flames left no trace upon the Abyssal’s body. Bites and claws left some scratches on the monster’s hide, but nothing worth noting.
Maybe that was what made the Avatar finally decide to take action. The ground rumbled as the Avatar’s Domain started shifting.
Rieren recognized the power as her heart stuttered. “Down, now!”
As she threw herself to the ground, pulling Amalyse down with her, she just caught the gigantic green plant around them erupting into a forest of spiky branches, all ringing the Abyssal in the centre. A second later, as Rieren pressed her face into the trunk, golden light exploded around them.
The monster’s many heads screamed out. Rieren didn’t dare look up yet. The brilliance of all those lights was making itself felt even through her tightly shut eyelids facing away from it.
Only when the pressure behind her eyelids lessened did she finally open her eyes. All she saw was Elder Olg.
“You must retreat,” he said, quiet but pressing. He looked a little tired after his altercation with the Blisterskull. “Hurry. With him distracted, you can use the same method you got in here to return whence you came.”
“What of you, Elder?” Rieren asked.
“Worry not about me. I will find my own way back to where I need to be.”
“At the Dungeon Core?”
Elder Olg pressed his lips together for a moment. For all that he had truly intended to redirect the Masked Avtar’s ire away from Rieren and the rest of them, he hadn’t been lying. He really had entered the Abyss to find a way to the Dungeon Core through it.
“The Dungeon Core holds most of the solutions to our conundrum,” Elder Olg said. “But there is no time to explain more. Go.”
Rieren nodded. “Take care, Elder.”
He smiled at her, then at the others. “Farewell, to all of you. Uphold the name of Lionshard Sect in all your actions. I believe in you all.”
Elder Olg swerved away to join the Avatar’s fight against the Blisterskull. Rieren was actually drawn to watch the mad battle for a few moments.
As much as the Avatar should have been able to deal with a mere B-Grade Abyssal without great difficulty, there were mitigating circumstances that made it difficult. For one, the battlefield being in the Abyss meant the monster was far stronger than normal, almost to the point of being considered an A-Grade.
For another, the Avatar was relying on the fact that his Divine-Aspected Essence would deal greater damage against the Abyssal. But it wasn’t working to the effect he had hoped.
He had combined his Divine-Aspected Essence with Abyss-Aspected Essence. The dark tendrils crawling all over the tree that formed Appraiser’s Domain was proof of that. Of course, the Divine Aspect would no longer have the same effect it normally would have, now that it was tainted with corrupted Essence.
Nevertheless, the Avatar’s power was undeniable. Where Elder Olg had great difficulty in surviving the monster’s attacks, the Avatar was almost untroubled.
The Abyssal launched several dark flamethrowers from some of its appendages, but they were easily blocked by the walls of golden light appearing before the Avatar. When that failed it tried attacking physically, but the Avatar was too fast for it to catch and land a blow upon.
Rieren remembered those little tricks. She had seen them used before, had faced them down as well, in her previous life. The way the Avatar melded into his tree to reappear from the bark at some other point, an advanced movement technique that was almost like teleportation. The way his tree randomly erupted into a trap of vines burning with vicious golden light.
The way he didn’t look like he was expending much effort at all.
This was a fraction of the power of the Forborne Emperor. The only reason the monster had lived this long was for the Divine-Aspected Essence being so diluted. All the golden light that attacked the Blisterskull was streaked with dark bolts here and there. More evidence of the corruption the Avatar had willfully taken in.
“We need to get moving,” Amalyse said. She was having difficulty tearing his eyes from the fight. “As the Elder said.”
Rieren had to agree. “Let us find the orbs that can take us away from here.”
“We need to find the one we took originally to get into the Abyss itself, right?”
“Correct. Unless we find a different one with an Abyss Rent. Ideally, it would be best to use the same one we used to get here as we know what lies on its other side. Any new Abyss Rent would be an unknown quantity.”
“But we can’t let that stop us,” the remaining guard said.
Rieren nodded. “Agreed.”
They left the more powerful ones to their battle and began searching through the orbs. The Avatar’s Domain had separated the orbs far away from each other. They had to jump over the now-uneven ground and through the thicket of branches to check each orb. Tedious.
But then, they were interrupted when the battle between the Avatar and the Blisterskull shifted again.
Rieren’s attention was drawn back. Good thing too. Her eyes widened as she found the Avatar floating several dozen paces above the ground, a translucent gold sphere around him growing more and more solid every heartbeat.
“Get behind the tree,” she shouted again, having difficulty believing that she was having to react in panic once again so soon. “Now!”
“What’s going on?” Amalyse asked.
Rieren pointed up at the glowing Avatar. “Everything is about to go up in flames. Hide, now.”
No further arguments ensued. One look at the Avatar convinced all of them that whatever was about to happen wasn’t good news. Rieren could confirm. She had seen first-hand what sort of destruction that technique had the potential of causing.
Thankfully, the Avatar’s Domain had risen and grown high enough to act as a sufficiently strong barrier. They all huddled behind the enormous tree.
Not a moment too soon. The glow had intensified so much that simply turning their eyes in the Avatar’s direction would have blinded them. He was glowing with the intensity of several suns stuffed into one location. Waves of heat were already roiling off him and vaporizing all that was caught in their area of effect.
Then the detonation occurred. It wasn’t terrible in the sound department. No furious explosion tore into Rieren’s ears. She ought to have been thankful for that, but it was disquieting because the lack of noise didn’t accurately represent the sheer power behind the technique.
“Monkey’s Abyssal balls,” Amalyse muttered when she was finally able to look.
Rieren peeked as well once the glow had died down. It was just as devastating as she recalled. Where the Avatar’s Domain-borne tree had survived the worst of the blast, everything else had been simply erased from existence. A crater the size of Lionshard mountain stretched out into the distance. No sand, no floating orbs, not even any fog either.
The Blisterskull had been eradicated, just like that.