I fly back instinctively as the newly reformed arm takes a swipe at me. “Uh, Veanya, this isn’t working!” I call out to my godly friend.
Right when I do so she unleashes another powerful magical blast that annihilates the other half of the devils body, only for it to start reforming seconds later. “I know it doesn’t look great…”
“It looks pretty damn bad!” I need to push myself back yet more to avoid a second sweep. “How do we defeat this thing if it just keeps reforming?”
“Maybe this thing has a core or something? Can you try to spot it?”
“It’s just purple and smokey…” I focus mostly on the central parts of the creature’s body as that is the area that hasn’t totally been destroyed yet by any of our attacks. “I can’t see a thing.”
“Keep trying! This thing must be held together by something. I’ll focus my next attack on the center but I need some time to get some of my power back.”
As I dodge the third sweep of the devil’s left arm I see Veanya floating somewhat further away, hunched over a little, using her staff as a kind of cane. Even though she is a full-fledged god, these attacks seem to be tiring her quite a bit. “I’ll keep it busy for a while longer then!” I shout in her direction.
We briefly make eye-contact as she gives me an affirmative nod after which I put my attention back on the monster in front of me.
While the two of us are trading blows with one another, the battle at the defensive line continues and Sam and our two friends are also still engaged with the red devils, all the engagements having turned into a slog of attrition. While the red devils are going down at a steady pace, it seems their behavior has changed as well.
When Gamma and I were fighting them alone, a dropped devil would dissipate pretty soon after falling, however from the looks of it that doesn’t seem to be the case now. If that’s because of the intense purple miasma or because of the purple devil’s presence, I can’t tell, but every time a devil goes down by the hands of my allies, they seem to just get up again and again. A battle against an unstoppable force is doomed to fail, so we definitely need to figure out a way to stop the enemy from getting back up. And it seems pretty straighforward that the solution is killing the big purple bastard we are fighting.
“Ami, I’m ready!” Veanya calls out to me, signaling for me to take my distance once more from the devil so that she can unleash her magic. I dash to the side while keeping my eye on the center mass of our foe as another wave of mana hits the creature. After the blinding light dissipates, the central body of the devil is gone, however, left floating in between it’s shadowy arms, is a ball of purple crystal. Veanya was right, the thing does have a core. “Hit it with everything you’ve got!” She yells at me to take this opportunity.
She doesn’t need to tell me twice. With a powerful flap of my wings I boost myself forward as I channel my magic into my blade. The devil’s right arm sweeps its purple sword at me to try and stop me, but with a barrel roll I manage to dodge it without an issue. I make my shield dissipate so I can put my full force behind my blade and strike at the core with all my might. Sparks of purple and white fly off the core’s surface as my blade makes contact and slowly sinks into the crystalline center. My muscles are burning as the resistance it’s offering is immense.
Just as it seems as though the resistance is lessening I hear the sound of Veanya’s voice. “Amici-” But it gets deafened by the clang of the devil’s fist making contact with my armor.
Overwhelming pain shoots through my body as I’m sent on an uncontrolled flight, smashing me into a rocky outcrop on the forest floor. The bones in the right side of my body cracking under the force of impact. “Arrggh!” I cry out in pain as the outer edges of my vision go black, yet I do not go completely unconscious, even though I kinda wish I did thanks to the unbearable pain I’m feeling right now.
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My self healing aura immediately gets to work as I feel the bones in my body set themselves straight again, a deeply unsettling feeling, even without the accompanying pain.
However, it seems as though my body won’t get time to heal, as a fear of death creeps into my broken bones as I see the purple devil in the distance, now free of a nuisance in melee, winding up its arm to throw its purple bolt straight at me, my sword still stuck in the creature’s core. I try to claw myself away but one of my arms doesn’t seem to be listening to what my brain is commanding so instead of getting out of dodge, my body just flops over onto the forest floor. The foul creature stares at me without a single emotion on its face. Just a blank stare as its arm moves forward to unleash the bolt that will strike me dead.
I close my eyes in fear of what is to come but to my surprise death doesn’t come, only the loud clanking of metal in the distance. Before I can even open my eyes I feel myself being picked up.
“I got you.” Sam’s voice puts me at ease as she carries me off, further away from the purple devil.
“Sam?” I ask meekly.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“What about the other devils?” I open my eyes and see Sam’s leather armor is covered in blood. My blood.
“I think your sword has managed to stop their regeneration for now.” She comments as she jumps over a ridge. “Sid is now keeping the big one occupied so he doesn’t pull it out.” Sam then comes to a halt and puts me down on the ground. When I look around me it seems that she carried me closer to the defensive line where things have also seemed to have calmed down for now.
In the meantime the pain is slowly receding.
“How are you feeling? You took quite the beating.” Sam brushes a stray hair from in front of my eyes.
“It’s getting better.” I reply as I manage to hold up my right arm again. My armored plates from that side of my body are just all gone. “How do I look?”
"Rough. But it’s getting better.” Sam gives me a wink as she repeats what I had just said. “Didn't I tell you to stay safe as well?”
“Sorry… I thought I had him.”
Sam nods and looks over her shoulder back at where the purple devil is fighting with Cid and presumably Gamma and Veanya as well. “This is definitely the toughest foe we’ve encountered so far.”
I offer my hand to my girlfriend. “Can you pull me up, Sam?”
“You sure?”
I nod. “I think I can stand, ye.”
Sam puffs up her cheek for a fraction of a second before she complies with my request and pulls me up to my feet. I’m not yet back at full power but I can feel the strength getting back in my muscles. I even manage to move my wing again.
“Your wing did look very gnarly.” Sam pats down my right wing. “But it looks fine now, just a bit bloody still. Your healing sure is something….”
I nod. “Wish it numbed the pain. It’s NOT fun.”
Sam nods, but just as she is about to comment further, Veanya lands next to us.
“Are you okay, Amicia?”
“I am now.”
“Good.” Veanya heaves a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry to ask this of you but I think I know how to beat this thing. But it’s going to be risky to say the least.”
“I’m all ears. This thing needs to go down either way.”
“Alright.” Veanya nods. “This is going to sound rather crazy but do not summon your sword back to your side. We want to keep it in the target for what I want to try.”
“Which is?” Sam asks, taking her bow from her back as well.
“I want to try to channel my magic through you, into your sword, combining it with your own magic.”
“That’s possible?” I tilt my head.
“Yes, but it’s not without its dangers; compare it to me guiding a volatile lightning bolt through your body with you amplifying its power even more.”
“While getting swatted at by the devil itself…” Sam ads.
Veanya nods. “Yeah… but I think it’s the only way to really rid us of the creature. The core doesn’t seem to care much about my spells and I think your strikes just barely lack the oomph to really get through it. At least if we want to have it over with in a timely manner…”
“I guess it's worth the shot. But how exactly are you going to channel it through me if my sword is stuck in the core?”
“Well… About that…”