“KiiiiiiiiiARRRRRGRHHHHH!”
“Wh-what is happening?!” Tasianna cried out, stepping back as she instinctively raised her hands towards Davison’s agony-filled screams.
A chill went down my spine; it felt like time was slowing down as my mind was overwhelmed by the sheer pressure emitting from the alchemist’s wailing body. The ice daggers stuck in his body were starting to shatter, cracking under the unnatural twitching.
[“Tasianna! Kill him! Kill him already!”] I called, understanding we had to end it now otherwise it would only get worse!
Kiiro and Tasianna wanted to gloat. Their emotions were running wild and they wanted to see Davison suffer as much as possible.
I should have said something. The events in the basement probably shook Tasianna too much. Her behavioral change is exactly what I was afraid of seeing, but I didn’t respond to it well enough!
“Tch, Kiiro! Back!” With one hand Tasianna recalled her catalyst like a puppeteer, while with the other, she raised it up and then slammed it down like a blade. Like a hail of arrows, daggers of ice descended onto Davison’s blackening body, battering his bloodied body and tearing chunks of flesh off.
However, none of that mattered. Davison with the voice of a beast cast [Earth Wall] to erect a tall wall of hardened rock, buying him enough time to break off the daggers stuck in him and let his flesh regenerate at an astounding rate. It was as if healing magic was cast on him.
He didn’t stay on the defensive for long though, as spears of rocks and earthen balls fended off the flying daggers while also forcing Tasianna, my wolves, and me to back off. I threw some bombs at him, but an earth wall appeared immediately as if he was anticipating my attack.
“All my daggers are gone,” Tasianna announced with a frown, chugging down a dragorade to recover her expended mana before touching her sword, probably to take the mana stored in her catalyst. She then cast [Frozen Shield] to block the incoming attacks.
At this time, I left Tasianna behind and entered a shadow with [Shadow Dash]. Dark magic had a weakness where the majority of its spells required me to visually confirm a targeted shadow to use it for any spells. Using [Shadow Snake]—which allowed me to look through its eyes—enabled me to use spells remotely, although if the distance between the shadow and me was too far, the mana cost was too obscene.
As Davison was blocking my sight with those [Earth Wall]s, I had to dash to his flanks with my wolves. And that was when I fully understood how malformed and disfigured he was.
If his appearance was distinguishable before, then now it was as if Davison was an entirely different person. His body was completely black-red, with no hint of his formerly white skin. Not only did he grow in height, but his muscles grew and morphed to the size of a bodybuilder in the heavier weight classes.
His hair, formerly yellow-brown, was now black while bone-like horns grew out of the side of his face, framing it. At his waist, tentacle-like appendages grew out until they formed something similar to a half-skirt, while his legs grew carapace armor similar to a knight’s. His upper body was still bare, leaving the bloated belly as the only thing recognizable from the former Davison.
“RaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrARRRRGHHH!” His roar, similar to a wind blast, forced me to retreat back into my shadow. Despite not giving them any orders, my wolves also felt the pressure from Davison’s roar and backed off, returning to Tasianna with me.
While wiping the cold sweat from my forehead, another massive roar thundered. The air felt hard to breathe, taking multiple tries to fill my lungs up with oxygen, straining my nerves and mind. My mouth felt dry, but I couldn’t stop myself from swallowing what little saliva I had.
I squeezed my daggers as a System message confirmed my suspicion.
I’m scared.
“Kehehehek.” Cackling from a deep, hoarse voice encroached my ears like insects, causing my hairs to stand up.
A hand so large it could wrap around my head touched the top of the [Earth Wall] before a horned head appeared—Davison’s. He managed to break out of my mana threads and stood up, nearly as tall as a lamp post. His mouth contorted into a grin, baring deformed teeth and canines a dentist would recommend removing as soon as possible. “How blissful. This power. Surging through my veins. How tragic. To use it. Here before the dogs of Greenveil.”
Davison’s second makeover didn’t stop there. His hands were now protected by bone-like gauntlets while the orb lodged in his chest was now covered up in red slime, pulsating like a heart.
“Creators of problems. You are. To my plans and pride. Insignificant. You are. Before the plans of my master,” Davison spoke in cut-out sentences. “You will die. I announce. Stop the loopabits before they evolve into loopriszars.”
Then he threw a chunk of wall at us.
Tasianna and I separated, dodging in opposite directions. My [Foresight] was warning me of another projectile, to which I responded by using [Dark Tendrils] to deflect the massive wall chunk to the side. It flew past me, bouncing on the floor before tearing through a section of the guild building’s walls.
Magic circles began appearing again, this time with a higher intensity, as it looked like the [Earthen Spear]s were larger. Those giant spears pierced through the air, drilling through the ground as if they were butter, stopping only after stopping only after burying half their length in the ground.
Tasianna and I returned fire with our own ranged spells, but even though all of them hit Davison, none of them seemed to have fazed him. As if his every cell was multiplying each second, his wounds would simply disappear and his body would grow back the damaged flesh, leaving not even a scar behind. His strong bones with his heightened vitality meant Tasianna’s ice daggers couldn’t cut his limbs off now. Davison laughed at our feeble attempts before charging towards Tasianna.
His strength, intelligence, vitality, wisdom, and now even his agility improved?!
Using his massive bone gauntlets, Davison smashed the grounds while chanting a spell. The ground exploded in tiny fragments, pushing Tasianna into the air to avoid the shockwave. A stone spear shot out from the crater, tearing through her [Frozen Shield] before Davison followed up with a fast-moving [Rock Bullet].
“Arghk!” Tasianna screamed as the bullet penetrated deep into her leg; however, even injured she didn’t give up the chance for a counter. Her ice sword flew and pierced his left arm, twisting it in the process before leaving by cutting downward. Davison’s arm wasn’t severed, but it looked unusable.
“Useless,” he commented, bending his knees a bit before jumping up and grabbing Tasianna by her leg. “Ahhh, I heard fairies can use transformation skills too. What a powerful fairy you must be. Perhaps? You will be the one to finalize my potion? Huh?”
White flames erupted from Tasianna’s wound, not to heal it since a stone was still stuck inside, but to attack Davison.
“Argh!” he screamed, letting go of Tasianna as if he touched a hot pan. “You can use that white flame?! How? Were you the one who created those white flame bombs? You have made me more interested in you, fae! Argh!”
The deformed man struggled, moving his arms behind his back to squash the source of his distress—me. After coating my tanto with one of the corrosive toxins, I sneaked behind Davison and pierced his nape. I continued hanging onto him to continue applying the toxin using my claw guards, stabbing him over and over again. Using a mana path debilitating venom—the same I used on the onnikai garms—I intended to cut off his ability to cast magic all together.
Why is his vitality so high now?!
My tantos were having issues piercing his skin, as any cuts required multiple shallow strikes for me to inject the venom into his bloodstream. Even in my [Humanize (Minor)] form, it didn’t look like I had enough strength to decapitate him with one strike.
[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Now!”] I commanded my wolves to jump out of Davison’s shadow. Song and Sarasa bit his heels while Uno targeted his, ahem, more vulnerable and soft spot.
“Ihieuck!” Davison groaned, stunning him for a second as he moved his knees a bit closer together.
Song and Sarasa held onto his heels but, due to the carapace covering his legs, they were having trouble biting through it. I saw them wince the moment blood came from their gums. Meanwhile, Uno, who had Davison’s, uh, precious under control, was scratching his legs to apply the toxin coating his claws.
I let go of my tanto, activated my [Mana Weave] skill, and used the newly produced threads to wrap them around Davison’s throat. I stepped on his back and began pulling the threads, all while the toxic slime was oozing down from my claws, soaking my threads and, as a consequence, his throat.
“Arghhhh! What is this poison!?” he shouted while trying to catch me, but I was able to stay nimble and used his larger size to my advantage by tip-toeing around his shoulders and arms. It also helped that his left arm still hadn’t regenerated yet, so I only had to deal with evading one hand. “Fuck! Hardened earth, pierce my opposition! Earthen-Guarck!”
As he was about to cast another spell, Davison coughed up some blood, interrupting his cast. Him using any spells while the toxin was inside his body really helped me.
“Kehek. A mana venom. I see. It ravages my body, but I will heal. I will live,” Davison said, staring at me from the corner of his eye while showing his unnatural teeth.
Keuk! That’s not good for my heart
“No magic. But, magic isn’t needed. This body isn’t restricted. To that concept anymore.” Davison then began bending his body backward, making it hard for me to keep standing firmly on him. As I was repositioning my feet, his tentacle half-skirt suddenly split itself back into individual appendages and attacked my garms.
Two tentacles wrapped around Song’s and Sarasa’s neck, another two attacked me, and the last four caught Uno, prying him off Davison. With Davison shuffling his body up and down, ruining my balance, the tentacle eventually caught my hand. “Got you,” he said in his eerie voice before removing me from his back and slamming me face-first on the ground.
Instead of continuing his attack on me, he focused on Uno. He punched the poor garm onto the ground and then slapped him across the battlefield. Song and Sarasa were being choked by Davison’s tentacles and were easily removed from his legs. I couldn’t let him continue doing this to my garms.
[“Uno! Rest for now!”]
Through [Shadow Pack] I was able to confirm Uno’s survival. I wasn’t able to see his exact health, but since the number of my shadow beasts didn’t decrease, I knew he wasn’t dead. It was just inconvenient that I couldn’t see how much damage he accrued.
As white flames began healing me, I slipped back into the shadow world and jumped out of Davison’s shadow, but he anticipated my move. I narrowly managed to sidestep his attacks thanks to my skills, but it was still a close call. As I was about to step back to recover my posture, an ice sword flew in to intervene against Davison’s next attack.
“Annoying fly!” The sword aimed for the patch of red slime on his chest, but couldn’t pierce it as he swerved his body. This gave me the chance to cast [Dark Tendrils] underneath Davison, which I used to close the distance between me and my garms. Using my tanto and one of my daggers, I severed the two tentacles holding my garms and had them flee back into a shadow.
Umbral Pendulum! Claws of Darkness!
Three claws materialized from shadows and raked into Davison’s stomach while a black bladed pendulum swung down from the half-destroyed ceiling. Davison clicked his tongue when he noticed Tasianna’s ice sword was coming at him once again. An ice sword was aiming for his chest while a giant raven-black construct aimed to rend him in half.
Davison couldn’t move much with the [Claws of Darkness] stuck in his stomach, but he could move enough so that the pendulum could only hack off his already destroyed left arm, saving the rest of his body. Then, before the sword could stab him, he grabbed it perfectly around the orb.
[“Daaaaavisssssonnnn!”] Kiiro screamed, struggling in vain to break free of Davison’s grip.
“Ahhhh, I remember you. This catalyst. Fae help fae, huh? A shame to break. A good orb … and mana source.”
Davison’s muscles grew in size as he strained his hand; however, he couldn’t fully commit to it as Tasianna sent a barrage of ice daggers at him. The slime of his chest suddenly moved, multiplying itself around his left shoulder to grow a temporary slime arm, which he used to absorb the daggers. They stuck on him but, as it wasn’t actual flesh, he ignored them and turned his attention back to Kiiro.
[“Damn you, Daaaavison!”] Kiiro screamed as Davison tightened his grip. The ice sword had broken and Kiiro was desperately trying to form something using its own mana, but it was too late for that.
Whatever my opinion of Kiiro was, it wasn’t important at this moment. The catalyst he currently resided in was Tasianna’s; not only that, but it was also blessed by Zephira herself. Such a precious tool was irreplaceable, especially when something inside of it was mine. Quatre, the fourth onnikai garm, was waiting for me to level up [Shadow Pack] so he could join me. I had to stop Davison from destroying it.
After evading Davison’s tentacles, I dived into a shadow and reappeared in front of him, tanto and knives ready. But, I wasn’t fast enough. I could hear a crack … and then a wind storm exploded.
“Griiiiargh!”
The moment cracks appeared around the orb, Kiiro screamed and a wind explosion happened, pushing everything in the orb’s vicinity away. As I was recovering from the pushback, I quickly understood that it had to be due to Zephira’s blessing.
“Kiiro!” Tasianna, as the only one who wasn’t affected by the gale wind, swooped in and picked her catalyst up before retreating. “Kiiro! Answer me!”
[“Quatre! Are you alright?!”]
“Urgh.” Before we could get an answer from the spirit, Davison stood back up. “Surprises. Surprises. Always something new. I cannot deal a clean. Blow. Cheating death.”
The slime in Davison’s left shoulder retreated back to his chest, revealing that his left arm was slowly regrowing. He held onto it, groaned and strained it, and the regeneration spiked where the arm instantly regrew back to its former form.
… What is this crap?
He did some arm exercises with his new arm before tearing a piece of the slime off his chest, throwing it away like a piece of wet cloth. He raised a brow for a moment, only for him to grimace and sigh.
“Filtering. There was a lot of that toxin. Deadly for a normal person. Would corrode my heart and mana paths. Hmm. Yes, a very deadly anti-mage toxin.” He then invoked a magic circle but immediately canceled it, looking disappointed. “Damage is very severe. Must study it later. How different it is. To other toxins.”
His focus wasn’t on the fight right now, he was looking at the surroundings with the eye of an alchemist—a scientist. Inspecting his body, the corrosive toxin, and the slime on his chest. The curiosity of an intellectual had overtaken him.
His mouth curved into a crescent moon. “Anger and annoyance. You brought me. New Experience. You brought me, too. Proper dissection and dismantling. Is a must. Now, what surprises will I find.”
“How about an explosive surprise?”
Huh? That voice?
From underneath Davison’s shadow, a man suddenly jumped out. He slapped both of Davison’s legs before returning back into his shadow. The spots where he touched them turned red before they exploded in a fiery burst, causing Davison to fall down.
“Aurgh!” Davison groaned.
“How about another?! Gale Steps!” The man jumped out of another shadow, accelerated his steps before slapping Davison’s chest and head, and then retreated. The exact same thing happened again, the spots grew red and they exploded.
“Gael!” I called the man out as he appeared before us.
“Sorry, sorry, I thought bringing some hard-hitting stuff would be better than my measly spells and daggers. Sorry for leaving the heavy-lifting to you two ladies,” he said with a wink.
The last time I saw Gael was after Davison used his first potion to transform into his less radical form. We were standing in the air with [Air Walk] after he detonated a bomb, causing the whole building to collapse. I did wonder where he was during the whole fight, but I didn’t give it too much thought after the fight intensified and took my full attention.
“Tch, hope you girls had enough time to rest from that. Cause I don’t think that explosive salve actually did enough to kill that fatass,” Gael said before producing some bombs from his pouch.
Davison’s figure appeared from the pyre, walking towards us slowly. Looking from top to bottom, I couldn’t help but grimace at the minimal damage the explosive salve did.
The carapace on Davison’s legs was broken, most of the slime was gone and cracked horns were framing a now scarred face. However, the swagger that he was walking with showed he didn’t care too much about it.
“Damnit! Torrential Rain!” A hail of water droplets barraged Davison’s body, slowing his advance only by a little. Tasianna then followed it up with [Icicle Gust], slicing his body with ice shards while freezing the water on his body. “Miss Saori!”
[“Right.”] I took in a deep breath before sprinting towards Davison. [“Humanize!”]
Mana mist escaped from my body and in the next moment, I found myself standing on four legs. A loud “Awroooooo” escaped my mouth and I cast [Dark Tendrils] on my shadow armor, producing three appendages to grab my tanto and two daggers, holding them around me. Once I closed the distance between Davison and me, I cast [Smoky Haze] once more, turning my shadow into a fog of darkness, consuming the both of us.
[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Wolf Hunt!”] After some time for them to recover, my garms once again joined the battle.
Uno was still unsteady from the previous blow, but it seemed adrenaline and his hunting fervor were keeping him on his feet. The title [Pack Leader] gave my garms a 5% increase in their strength and intelligence, but it sadly didn’t provide them with any defensive stats or additional health.
In the shadow of my fog, Davison’s body was slowly freezing, giving me one last chance to end this. As my garms and I circled around Davison like the pack of wolves we were, I threw various mana threads to my garms. While I did so, I noticed two bombs entered my fog and exploded on Davison’s head, causing him to fall on his knees.
With a commanding “Awrooo,” my garms went into action. My wolves used the fog to its maximum potential by using [Shadow Dash], attacking and tearing pieces of Davison from every angle conceivable, all while wrapping mana threads around him and activating the elemental threads. Fire, wind, water, ice, holy, lava, lightning, dark—every element we had thread for was used to ravage through Davison’s body.
I then went into action. Similar to my previous stunt, I was using [Shadow Dash] freely and turned myself into a speedster in the process. The tendrils holding onto my daggers and tanto twirled like a chainsaw, cutting through Davison’s flesh and armor with ebony blades. If somebody could see this scene, they would describe it as multiple black shadows dashing around while two streaks of red mist streamed around like a tornado.
Davison was turning into mincemeat, a bloody pile of mangled bones. The toxin he removed before was being reinjected into him, to the point that his bloodstream was probably more acid than blood at this point.
He would not live.
I then used his body as a springboard, jumping up into the air for my final attack.
Abyssal Bomb.
A ball of pressurized tenebrous mana was forming inside my mouth. When it finished charging, I pulled myself closer to Davison with [Dark Tendrils] and bodychecked him onto the ground. With my [Shadow Armament]-enhanced claws, I tore through the slime covering his chest and threw the spell into it, before retreating back to a safe distance with my garms.
Upon my signal, the bomb detonated, sending off an explosion large enough to eclipse my entire [Smoky Haze] in size and taking a big chunk out of the final wall support for the guild. With all this destruction, the remaining parts of the building collapsed right onto the mad alchemist.
Urgh! Damnit …
Leveling up recovered health and mana but, unfortunately, it didn’t restore stamina. I really mismanaged my stamina here like a rookie. What a mistake. However, I couldn’t dwell too much on it, as I needed to do something else. Something important.
“Quatre! I accept you as my shadow beast! Come and join my pack!”
He was damaged! Then what does that mean for Kiiro?
My [Smoky Haze] deactivated after the bomb was detonated, revealing the now scorched body of Davison. His body was black as charcoal and a gaping hole could be seen where his heart and orb should have been. He was motionless, showing no movements; dead, as the System confirmed with my level up.
Relieved to see that, I wanted to walk over towards Tasianna, who was speaking with her orb frantically; however, I stumbled on the way over.
“Woah, there!” Gael caught me, surprised to see me nearly fall. “Stamina? Yeah, I can understand that. Here, lean on my shoulders for now.”
“Thank you … but you aren’t breathing any better. And you hardly participated in this fight,” I said, pointing out his ragged breathing in a joking manner.
“Come on, give me a break. I honestly haven’t fought in a long time, you know. Muscle memory helps a lot, yeah, but drinking and sitting on a couch while listening to little birds chirping doesn’t do much for your stamina,” he replied with a self-deprecating chuckle before showing me a wink.
When we reached Tasianna, she looked mournful as she inspected the orb. “Kiiro is not answering, Miss Saoi … It is not even taking my mana to recover. Kiiro, can you hear me? Davison is dead. The madman is dead. Your vengeance was fulfilled...”
She didn’t shed any tears, but her sad expression told me she could at any time. Was she holding her tears in since Kiiro was practically a stranger to us, never revealing any more of its history and life before it met Davison? The alliance we formed to defeat Davison was over, so it should find peace.
However, were we too late? The cracking of Tasianna’s catalyst damaged Quatre, so how much was Kiiro affected? It would be a shame if we couldn’t at least tell it goodbye.
[“... Alive.”] Kiiro’s voice eked into my head before a shiver ran down my spine.
“GooooooOOOOOOONNNNNN!” It was a bestial cry, feral and mad, devoid of any humanity or semblance of reason. The sound quaked our very earth.
I hesitated but I turned my head anyway.
The mangled carcass rose. His arms and legs had regrown, but now they were so deformed that I couldn’t find a reason for their existence. They bloated up into eldritch-like forms as tentacles around his hips grew or shrunk in size, wiggling around as if they had a life of their own. The horns on his head grew in size despite the fact his skull fell apart, revealing a burnt brain. His eyes were abyss black, no more showing any signs of life or intelligence.
“Davison” rose.
“GoooOOOOOOOONNNNNN!”
He rose back up as a creature of nightmares. A creature of eldritch fantasy. A creature … that I remembered seeing before.
The troll shaman!
“You have to be kidding me!” I shouted, exhausted. My body had already reached its limit for today.
“You tell me! Why the fuck is that fatfuck still alive! We blew his brain and heart out! Fucking undead!” Gael cried out. “Shit! We need a priest! We need to bring a priest over here and purify that fucking undead!”
[“Daaa … aaaaviii … ssooooooonnnnn! Ugargh …”] Kiiro screamed as it noticed Davison’s rising body, however, Tasianna pulled it back. Unwilling to let the spirit fly over, she held the catalyst close to her chest.
[“Miss Saori, we need to go! We can’t fight while you’re in this state! Your skin is too purple for you to fight!”]
The moment Tasianna said that, a piercing headache appeared. I moaned in pain as I looked at my arms, noticing a lack of healthy pink. They were mostly purple, or blue, a sign that arcane corruption was almost at its peak. While my mana regeneration finally overshadowed my consumption while humanized, it was still building up a miniscule amount of arcane corruption.
As I already had [Exhaustion] and [Arcane Corruption] was right over the corner, continuing this fight was irresponsible. Davison was technically dead, even if his mindless, shambling corpse still remained. My role was done. I was not willing to continue fighting this creature anymore, especially with my memories of that troll shaman intact in my head.
Urgh, we need to call for Farron or the knights. We need support—
“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry
In Hellfire
All you hear are his screams, begging to be released
It’s Music ”
My eyes widened. I heard music … following my body receiving multiple buffs to strengthen it. I turned around.
A girl in a colorful dress, so unsuitable for the battlefield, was walking towards us. She was singing with closed eyes as her crimson scales were flaring up in flames. Her chest, a bright yellow-red shone like a flashlight.
I gulped, but I understood why she was here. I nodded. “… We’ll leave the rest to you, Hestia. Send him to hell.”
She stopped singing for a moment, opened her eyes, and showed us a thumbs up. “Leave it to me! Get a well-earned rest, you three! It is time for the finale of the night.”
“GooooooOOONNNN!” Davison cried out and charged at us; however, the earth rumbled and began trapping him, holding him back as he struggled to destroy the ever-growing stone constructs.
We left the area and the moment we did, the music began anew. An arena of fire took shape, trapping the corpse in a cage with the dragon.
From outside, I could see Hestia’s scales and hair flare-up, switching from their iconic crimson to a bright yellow-red similar to the bright solar core in her chest. Her eyes radiated with power, shining through the darkness of the night like torches.
“Solar Beam.”
The flames erupted; every scales’ gap had flames coming out of them, making it look like Hestia was set on fire. It only took a few seconds before their color changed to white.
Hestia’s body jerked back as her mouth grew in size like a chipmunks, only for her to release a beam of pure white fire onto Davison. It was blinding, as if I was looking at the sun, but I could still see what was happening by straining my eyes a bit.
Davison’s flesh was melting, no, even the surrounding rubble was being liquified. The rock constructs, the rubble, the broken manatech. Everything that was close to Davison couldn’t withstand the heat and was slowly turning into lava.
The beam eventually ended with an explosion, releasing what seemed to be a massive amount of scale-dust into the area. Hestia’s body grew blinding white, with hints of crimson from her scale-dust.
That was the description of her [Solar Beam] draconic ability. Considering the rest of her abilities, it wasn’t the most unique ability, but it surely was the strongest. Two bunker-destroying abilities that buffed her stats up while she was in her “overdrive” mode.
It surprised me she was keeping the phase active, but I then noticed Davison’s corpse. Its head and arms had melted down into nothingness but it simply regrew tentacles and eyes as substitutes. It truly was a stubborn eldritch being.
Once it gave another shriek, it charged forward. Hestia simply stood still, looking down at the mindless beast. Her body then flared purple before turning into a full suit of purple armor she called “Dragoon Armor” from that fantasy game she liked talking about, created using her new custom spell [Panzer].
It was her version of the ability [Dracobody], something Farron used in their spars. Also, since buying armor cost a lot of money, she also wanted to relieve our purse until Tasianna and I got our equipment first.
Davison’s corpse punched Hestia, but she simply blocked it with her armor and [Draconic Barrier], nullifying even the knockback. She then casually pierced her claws into his arm and tore it off without any issues before proceeding to remove the remaining limbs one-by-one, leaving only the torso behind.
Davison’s body tried to regenerate its lost flesh, but all its attempts were stopped by Hestia’s scale-dust, exploding and incinerating the limbs before they could grow in size. If she had taken the [Scale-Dust User] Job, she probably could have stopped his regeneration altogether.
Hestia would continue fighting against Davison’s mangled, deformed corpse, letting out a small chuckle as she used him like a punching bag to alleviate her [Battle Frenzy]. However, I had the feeling she was just stalling for time.
Looking at the sky, two massive magic circles were materializing in the sky as they fought, one red and the other white. The more powerful a spell, the longer it needed to fully form its magic circle. Even if we didn’t need to chant due to [Chant Revocation], there was still a preparation time until we could unleash the spell. Without chanting, it was just lessened.
Hestia had the lightning spell [Purple Flash] which helped her cast these large spells instantly by materializing the magic circles in seconds, but the issue was it would consume triple the amount of mana she would have needed to cast those spells normally. Since she held her concert during the night, there wasn’t a sun to help her regenerate mana so she must have tired herself out. She would use up her remaining reserves if she were hasty about it.
It only took a bit longer in the scorching flames for the two circles to be complete.
“Symphonie des Feurergottes. Omnictus,” she said before grabbing onto the limbless torso of the corpse. “Release. Solar Flare!”
The fire on Hestia’s body flared up in size before erupting like a volcano upwards. That was when both [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Omnictus] released, pouring rays of light and waves of inferno onto the Hestia and Davison.
The heat and pressure were so intense it forced us to move back even more, as staying closer was enough to risk our clothes and hair catching fire. The sea of fire released by Hestia didn’t move any further than the area created by her Idol song [Dragon Fire], preventing further collateral damage to the neighborhood. She was isolating everything into a single area.
Like a star, the night was brightened by her white flames … And good god, it was overkill.
Once it ended, the residual heat was still too much for us to approach. Tasianna had to apply [Glacial Protection] and cool the surrounding temperature for us to even get close to Hestia. There we could only see a crater. The alchemy guild’s building was completely vaporized, leaving nothing behind. Speaking about vaporization, so was Davison’s body. There was nothing in the crater except a collapsed dragonewt girl.
The heat at ground zero was the most fearsome, requiring Tasianna to cool down everything with her ice and water magic. Once we could traverse it safely, we approached Hestia. Her breathing was ragged and she was sweating profusely, something she rarely ever did as a fire dragon.
She noticed us and opened her eyes, before showing us another thumbs up.
“Can I get some food, please?”
… Unbelievable.
AbyssRaven Hestia really went and said "Time to overkill."
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“KiiiiiiiiiARRRRRGRHHHHH!”
“Wh-what is happening?!” Tasianna cried out, stepping back as she instinctively raised her hands towards Davison’s agony-filled screams.
A chill went down my spine; it felt like time was slowing down as my mind was overwhelmed by the sheer pressure emitting from the alchemist’s wailing body. The ice daggers stuck in his body were starting to shatter, cracking under the unnatural twitching.
[“Tasianna! Kill him! Kill him already!”] I called, understanding we had to end it now otherwise it would only get worse!
Kiiro and Tasianna wanted to gloat. Their emotions were running wild and they wanted to see Davison suffer as much as possible.
I should have said something. The events in the basement probably shook Tasianna too much. Her behavioral change is exactly what I was afraid of seeing, but I didn’t respond to it well enough!
“Tch, Kiiro! Back!” With one hand Tasianna recalled her catalyst like a puppeteer, while with the other, she raised it up and then slammed it down like a blade. Like a hail of arrows, daggers of ice descended onto Davison’s blackening body, battering his bloodied body and tearing chunks of flesh off.
However, none of that mattered. Davison with the voice of a beast cast [Earth Wall] to erect a tall wall of hardened rock, buying him enough time to break off the daggers stuck in him and let his flesh regenerate at an astounding rate. It was as if healing magic was cast on him.
He didn’t stay on the defensive for long though, as spears of rocks and earthen balls fended off the flying daggers while also forcing Tasianna, my wolves, and me to back off. I threw some bombs at him, but an earth wall appeared immediately as if he was anticipating my attack.
“All my daggers are gone,” Tasianna announced with a frown, chugging down a dragorade to recover her expended mana before touching her sword, probably to take the mana stored in her catalyst. She then cast [Frozen Shield] to block the incoming attacks.
At this time, I left Tasianna behind and entered a shadow with [Shadow Dash]. Dark magic had a weakness where the majority of its spells required me to visually confirm a targeted shadow to use it for any spells. Using [Shadow Snake]—which allowed me to look through its eyes—enabled me to use spells remotely, although if the distance between the shadow and me was too far, the mana cost was too obscene.
As Davison was blocking my sight with those [Earth Wall]s, I had to dash to his flanks with my wolves. And that was when I fully understood how malformed and disfigured he was.
If his appearance was distinguishable before, then now it was as if Davison was an entirely different person. His body was completely black-red, with no hint of his formerly white skin. Not only did he grow in height, but his muscles grew and morphed to the size of a bodybuilder in the heavier weight classes.
His hair, formerly yellow-brown, was now black while bone-like horns grew out of the side of his face, framing it. At his waist, tentacle-like appendages grew out until they formed something similar to a half-skirt, while his legs grew carapace armor similar to a knight’s. His upper body was still bare, leaving the bloated belly as the only thing recognizable from the former Davison.
“RaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrARRRRGHHH!” His roar, similar to a wind blast, forced me to retreat back into my shadow. Despite not giving them any orders, my wolves also felt the pressure from Davison’s roar and backed off, returning to Tasianna with me.
While wiping the cold sweat from my forehead, another massive roar thundered. The air felt hard to breathe, taking multiple tries to fill my lungs up with oxygen, straining my nerves and mind. My mouth felt dry, but I couldn’t stop myself from swallowing what little saliva I had.
I squeezed my daggers as a System message confirmed my suspicion.
I’m scared.
“Kehehehek.” Cackling from a deep, hoarse voice encroached my ears like insects, causing my hairs to stand up.
A hand so large it could wrap around my head touched the top of the [Earth Wall] before a horned head appeared—Davison’s. He managed to break out of my mana threads and stood up, nearly as tall as a lamp post. His mouth contorted into a grin, baring deformed teeth and canines a dentist would recommend removing as soon as possible. “How blissful. This power. Surging through my veins. How tragic. To use it. Here before the dogs of Greenveil.”
Davison’s second makeover didn’t stop there. His hands were now protected by bone-like gauntlets while the orb lodged in his chest was now covered up in red slime, pulsating like a heart.
“Creators of problems. You are. To my plans and pride. Insignificant. You are. Before the plans of my master,” Davison spoke in cut-out sentences. “You will die. I announce. Stop the loopabits before they evolve into loopriszars.”
Then he threw a chunk of wall at us.
Tasianna and I separated, dodging in opposite directions. My [Foresight] was warning me of another projectile, to which I responded by using [Dark Tendrils] to deflect the massive wall chunk to the side. It flew past me, bouncing on the floor before tearing through a section of the guild building’s walls.
Magic circles began appearing again, this time with a higher intensity, as it looked like the [Earthen Spear]s were larger. Those giant spears pierced through the air, drilling through the ground as if they were butter, stopping only after stopping only after burying half their length in the ground.
Tasianna and I returned fire with our own ranged spells, but even though all of them hit Davison, none of them seemed to have fazed him. As if his every cell was multiplying each second, his wounds would simply disappear and his body would grow back the damaged flesh, leaving not even a scar behind. His strong bones with his heightened vitality meant Tasianna’s ice daggers couldn’t cut his limbs off now. Davison laughed at our feeble attempts before charging towards Tasianna.
His strength, intelligence, vitality, wisdom, and now even his agility improved?!
Using his massive bone gauntlets, Davison smashed the grounds while chanting a spell. The ground exploded in tiny fragments, pushing Tasianna into the air to avoid the shockwave. A stone spear shot out from the crater, tearing through her [Frozen Shield] before Davison followed up with a fast-moving [Rock Bullet].
“Arghk!” Tasianna screamed as the bullet penetrated deep into her leg; however, even injured she didn’t give up the chance for a counter. Her ice sword flew and pierced his left arm, twisting it in the process before leaving by cutting downward. Davison’s arm wasn’t severed, but it looked unusable.
“Useless,” he commented, bending his knees a bit before jumping up and grabbing Tasianna by her leg. “Ahhh, I heard fairies can use transformation skills too. What a powerful fairy you must be. Perhaps? You will be the one to finalize my potion? Huh?”
White flames erupted from Tasianna’s wound, not to heal it since a stone was still stuck inside, but to attack Davison.
“Argh!” he screamed, letting go of Tasianna as if he touched a hot pan. “You can use that white flame?! How? Were you the one who created those white flame bombs? You have made me more interested in you, fae! Argh!”
The deformed man struggled, moving his arms behind his back to squash the source of his distress—me. After coating my tanto with one of the corrosive toxins, I sneaked behind Davison and pierced his nape. I continued hanging onto him to continue applying the toxin using my claw guards, stabbing him over and over again. Using a mana path debilitating venom—the same I used on the onnikai garms—I intended to cut off his ability to cast magic all together.
Why is his vitality so high now?!
My tantos were having issues piercing his skin, as any cuts required multiple shallow strikes for me to inject the venom into his bloodstream. Even in my [Humanize (Minor)] form, it didn’t look like I had enough strength to decapitate him with one strike.
[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Now!”] I commanded my wolves to jump out of Davison’s shadow. Song and Sarasa bit his heels while Uno targeted his, ahem, more vulnerable and soft spot.
“Ihieuck!” Davison groaned, stunning him for a second as he moved his knees a bit closer together.
Song and Sarasa held onto his heels but, due to the carapace covering his legs, they were having trouble biting through it. I saw them wince the moment blood came from their gums. Meanwhile, Uno, who had Davison’s, uh, precious under control, was scratching his legs to apply the toxin coating his claws.
I let go of my tanto, activated my [Mana Weave] skill, and used the newly produced threads to wrap them around Davison’s throat. I stepped on his back and began pulling the threads, all while the toxic slime was oozing down from my claws, soaking my threads and, as a consequence, his throat.
“Arghhhh! What is this poison!?” he shouted while trying to catch me, but I was able to stay nimble and used his larger size to my advantage by tip-toeing around his shoulders and arms. It also helped that his left arm still hadn’t regenerated yet, so I only had to deal with evading one hand. “Fuck! Hardened earth, pierce my opposition! Earthen-Guarck!”
As he was about to cast another spell, Davison coughed up some blood, interrupting his cast. Him using any spells while the toxin was inside his body really helped me.
“Kehek. A mana venom. I see. It ravages my body, but I will heal. I will live,” Davison said, staring at me from the corner of his eye while showing his unnatural teeth.
Keuk! That’s not good for my heart
“No magic. But, magic isn’t needed. This body isn’t restricted. To that concept anymore.” Davison then began bending his body backward, making it hard for me to keep standing firmly on him. As I was repositioning my feet, his tentacle half-skirt suddenly split itself back into individual appendages and attacked my garms.
Two tentacles wrapped around Song’s and Sarasa’s neck, another two attacked me, and the last four caught Uno, prying him off Davison. With Davison shuffling his body up and down, ruining my balance, the tentacle eventually caught my hand. “Got you,” he said in his eerie voice before removing me from his back and slamming me face-first on the ground.
Instead of continuing his attack on me, he focused on Uno. He punched the poor garm onto the ground and then slapped him across the battlefield. Song and Sarasa were being choked by Davison’s tentacles and were easily removed from his legs. I couldn’t let him continue doing this to my garms.
[“Uno! Rest for now!”]
Through [Shadow Pack] I was able to confirm Uno’s survival. I wasn’t able to see his exact health, but since the number of my shadow beasts didn’t decrease, I knew he wasn’t dead. It was just inconvenient that I couldn’t see how much damage he accrued.
As white flames began healing me, I slipped back into the shadow world and jumped out of Davison’s shadow, but he anticipated my move. I narrowly managed to sidestep his attacks thanks to my skills, but it was still a close call. As I was about to step back to recover my posture, an ice sword flew in to intervene against Davison’s next attack.
“Annoying fly!” The sword aimed for the patch of red slime on his chest, but couldn’t pierce it as he swerved his body. This gave me the chance to cast [Dark Tendrils] underneath Davison, which I used to close the distance between me and my garms. Using my tanto and one of my daggers, I severed the two tentacles holding my garms and had them flee back into a shadow.
Umbral Pendulum! Claws of Darkness!
Three claws materialized from shadows and raked into Davison’s stomach while a black bladed pendulum swung down from the half-destroyed ceiling. Davison clicked his tongue when he noticed Tasianna’s ice sword was coming at him once again. An ice sword was aiming for his chest while a giant raven-black construct aimed to rend him in half.
Davison couldn’t move much with the [Claws of Darkness] stuck in his stomach, but he could move enough so that the pendulum could only hack off his already destroyed left arm, saving the rest of his body. Then, before the sword could stab him, he grabbed it perfectly around the orb.
[“Daaaaavisssssonnnn!”] Kiiro screamed, struggling in vain to break free of Davison’s grip.
“Ahhhh, I remember you. This catalyst. Fae help fae, huh? A shame to break. A good orb … and mana source.”
Davison’s muscles grew in size as he strained his hand; however, he couldn’t fully commit to it as Tasianna sent a barrage of ice daggers at him. The slime of his chest suddenly moved, multiplying itself around his left shoulder to grow a temporary slime arm, which he used to absorb the daggers. They stuck on him but, as it wasn’t actual flesh, he ignored them and turned his attention back to Kiiro.
[“Damn you, Daaaavison!”] Kiiro screamed as Davison tightened his grip. The ice sword had broken and Kiiro was desperately trying to form something using its own mana, but it was too late for that.
Whatever my opinion of Kiiro was, it wasn’t important at this moment. The catalyst he currently resided in was Tasianna’s; not only that, but it was also blessed by Zephira herself. Such a precious tool was irreplaceable, especially when something inside of it was mine. Quatre, the fourth onnikai garm, was waiting for me to level up [Shadow Pack] so he could join me. I had to stop Davison from destroying it.
After evading Davison’s tentacles, I dived into a shadow and reappeared in front of him, tanto and knives ready. But, I wasn’t fast enough. I could hear a crack … and then a wind storm exploded.
“Griiiiargh!”
The moment cracks appeared around the orb, Kiiro screamed and a wind explosion happened, pushing everything in the orb’s vicinity away. As I was recovering from the pushback, I quickly understood that it had to be due to Zephira’s blessing.
“Kiiro!” Tasianna, as the only one who wasn’t affected by the gale wind, swooped in and picked her catalyst up before retreating. “Kiiro! Answer me!”
[“Quatre! Are you alright?!”]
“Urgh.” Before we could get an answer from the spirit, Davison stood back up. “Surprises. Surprises. Always something new. I cannot deal a clean. Blow. Cheating death.”
The slime in Davison’s left shoulder retreated back to his chest, revealing that his left arm was slowly regrowing. He held onto it, groaned and strained it, and the regeneration spiked where the arm instantly regrew back to its former form.
… What is this crap?
He did some arm exercises with his new arm before tearing a piece of the slime off his chest, throwing it away like a piece of wet cloth. He raised a brow for a moment, only for him to grimace and sigh.
“Filtering. There was a lot of that toxin. Deadly for a normal person. Would corrode my heart and mana paths. Hmm. Yes, a very deadly anti-mage toxin.” He then invoked a magic circle but immediately canceled it, looking disappointed. “Damage is very severe. Must study it later. How different it is. To other toxins.”
His focus wasn’t on the fight right now, he was looking at the surroundings with the eye of an alchemist—a scientist. Inspecting his body, the corrosive toxin, and the slime on his chest. The curiosity of an intellectual had overtaken him.
His mouth curved into a crescent moon. “Anger and annoyance. You brought me. New Experience. You brought me, too. Proper dissection and dismantling. Is a must. Now, what surprises will I find.”
“How about an explosive surprise?”
Huh? That voice?
From underneath Davison’s shadow, a man suddenly jumped out. He slapped both of Davison’s legs before returning back into his shadow. The spots where he touched them turned red before they exploded in a fiery burst, causing Davison to fall down.
“Aurgh!” Davison groaned.
“How about another?! Gale Steps!” The man jumped out of another shadow, accelerated his steps before slapping Davison’s chest and head, and then retreated. The exact same thing happened again, the spots grew red and they exploded.
“Gael!” I called the man out as he appeared before us.
“Sorry, sorry, I thought bringing some hard-hitting stuff would be better than my measly spells and daggers. Sorry for leaving the heavy-lifting to you two ladies,” he said with a wink.
The last time I saw Gael was after Davison used his first potion to transform into his less radical form. We were standing in the air with [Air Walk] after he detonated a bomb, causing the whole building to collapse. I did wonder where he was during the whole fight, but I didn’t give it too much thought after the fight intensified and took my full attention.
“Tch, hope you girls had enough time to rest from that. Cause I don’t think that explosive salve actually did enough to kill that fatass,” Gael said before producing some bombs from his pouch.
Davison’s figure appeared from the pyre, walking towards us slowly. Looking from top to bottom, I couldn’t help but grimace at the minimal damage the explosive salve did.
The carapace on Davison’s legs was broken, most of the slime was gone and cracked horns were framing a now scarred face. However, the swagger that he was walking with showed he didn’t care too much about it.
“Damnit! Torrential Rain!” A hail of water droplets barraged Davison’s body, slowing his advance only by a little. Tasianna then followed it up with [Icicle Gust], slicing his body with ice shards while freezing the water on his body. “Miss Saori!”
[“Right.”] I took in a deep breath before sprinting towards Davison. [“Humanize!”]
Mana mist escaped from my body and in the next moment, I found myself standing on four legs. A loud “Awroooooo” escaped my mouth and I cast [Dark Tendrils] on my shadow armor, producing three appendages to grab my tanto and two daggers, holding them around me. Once I closed the distance between Davison and me, I cast [Smoky Haze] once more, turning my shadow into a fog of darkness, consuming the both of us.
[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Wolf Hunt!”] After some time for them to recover, my garms once again joined the battle.
Uno was still unsteady from the previous blow, but it seemed adrenaline and his hunting fervor were keeping him on his feet. The title [Pack Leader] gave my garms a 5% increase in their strength and intelligence, but it sadly didn’t provide them with any defensive stats or additional health.
In the shadow of my fog, Davison’s body was slowly freezing, giving me one last chance to end this. As my garms and I circled around Davison like the pack of wolves we were, I threw various mana threads to my garms. While I did so, I noticed two bombs entered my fog and exploded on Davison’s head, causing him to fall on his knees.
With a commanding “Awrooo,” my garms went into action. My wolves used the fog to its maximum potential by using [Shadow Dash], attacking and tearing pieces of Davison from every angle conceivable, all while wrapping mana threads around him and activating the elemental threads. Fire, wind, water, ice, holy, lava, lightning, dark—every element we had thread for was used to ravage through Davison’s body.
I then went into action. Similar to my previous stunt, I was using [Shadow Dash] freely and turned myself into a speedster in the process. The tendrils holding onto my daggers and tanto twirled like a chainsaw, cutting through Davison’s flesh and armor with ebony blades. If somebody could see this scene, they would describe it as multiple black shadows dashing around while two streaks of red mist streamed around like a tornado.
Davison was turning into mincemeat, a bloody pile of mangled bones. The toxin he removed before was being reinjected into him, to the point that his bloodstream was probably more acid than blood at this point.
He would not live.
I then used his body as a springboard, jumping up into the air for my final attack.
Abyssal Bomb.
A ball of pressurized tenebrous mana was forming inside my mouth. When it finished charging, I pulled myself closer to Davison with [Dark Tendrils] and bodychecked him onto the ground. With my [Shadow Armament]-enhanced claws, I tore through the slime covering his chest and threw the spell into it, before retreating back to a safe distance with my garms.
Upon my signal, the bomb detonated, sending off an explosion large enough to eclipse my entire [Smoky Haze] in size and taking a big chunk out of the final wall support for the guild. With all this destruction, the remaining parts of the building collapsed right onto the mad alchemist.
Urgh! Damnit …
Leveling up recovered health and mana but, unfortunately, it didn’t restore stamina. I really mismanaged my stamina here like a rookie. What a mistake. However, I couldn’t dwell too much on it, as I needed to do something else. Something important.
“Quatre! I accept you as my shadow beast! Come and join my pack!”
He was damaged! Then what does that mean for Kiiro?
My [Smoky Haze] deactivated after the bomb was detonated, revealing the now scorched body of Davison. His body was black as charcoal and a gaping hole could be seen where his heart and orb should have been. He was motionless, showing no movements; dead, as the System confirmed with my level up.
Relieved to see that, I wanted to walk over towards Tasianna, who was speaking with her orb frantically; however, I stumbled on the way over.
“Woah, there!” Gael caught me, surprised to see me nearly fall. “Stamina? Yeah, I can understand that. Here, lean on my shoulders for now.”
“Thank you … but you aren’t breathing any better. And you hardly participated in this fight,” I said, pointing out his ragged breathing in a joking manner.
“Come on, give me a break. I honestly haven’t fought in a long time, you know. Muscle memory helps a lot, yeah, but drinking and sitting on a couch while listening to little birds chirping doesn’t do much for your stamina,” he replied with a self-deprecating chuckle before showing me a wink.
When we reached Tasianna, she looked mournful as she inspected the orb. “Kiiro is not answering, Miss Saoi … It is not even taking my mana to recover. Kiiro, can you hear me? Davison is dead. The madman is dead. Your vengeance was fulfilled...”
She didn’t shed any tears, but her sad expression told me she could at any time. Was she holding her tears in since Kiiro was practically a stranger to us, never revealing any more of its history and life before it met Davison? The alliance we formed to defeat Davison was over, so it should find peace.
However, were we too late? The cracking of Tasianna’s catalyst damaged Quatre, so how much was Kiiro affected? It would be a shame if we couldn’t at least tell it goodbye.
[“... Alive.”] Kiiro’s voice eked into my head before a shiver ran down my spine.
“GooooooOOOOOOONNNNNN!” It was a bestial cry, feral and mad, devoid of any humanity or semblance of reason. The sound quaked our very earth.
I hesitated but I turned my head anyway.
The mangled carcass rose. His arms and legs had regrown, but now they were so deformed that I couldn’t find a reason for their existence. They bloated up into eldritch-like forms as tentacles around his hips grew or shrunk in size, wiggling around as if they had a life of their own. The horns on his head grew in size despite the fact his skull fell apart, revealing a burnt brain. His eyes were abyss black, no more showing any signs of life or intelligence.
“Davison” rose.
“GoooOOOOOOOONNNNNN!”
He rose back up as a creature of nightmares. A creature of eldritch fantasy. A creature … that I remembered seeing before.
The troll shaman!
“You have to be kidding me!” I shouted, exhausted. My body had already reached its limit for today.
“You tell me! Why the fuck is that fatfuck still alive! We blew his brain and heart out! Fucking undead!” Gael cried out. “Shit! We need a priest! We need to bring a priest over here and purify that fucking undead!”
[“Daaa … aaaaviii … ssooooooonnnnn! Ugargh …”] Kiiro screamed as it noticed Davison’s rising body, however, Tasianna pulled it back. Unwilling to let the spirit fly over, she held the catalyst close to her chest.
[“Miss Saori, we need to go! We can’t fight while you’re in this state! Your skin is too purple for you to fight!”]
The moment Tasianna said that, a piercing headache appeared. I moaned in pain as I looked at my arms, noticing a lack of healthy pink. They were mostly purple, or blue, a sign that arcane corruption was almost at its peak. While my mana regeneration finally overshadowed my consumption while humanized, it was still building up a miniscule amount of arcane corruption.
As I already had [Exhaustion] and [Arcane Corruption] was right over the corner, continuing this fight was irresponsible. Davison was technically dead, even if his mindless, shambling corpse still remained. My role was done. I was not willing to continue fighting this creature anymore, especially with my memories of that troll shaman intact in my head.
Urgh, we need to call for Farron or the knights. We need support—
“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry
In Hellfire
All you hear are his screams, begging to be released
It’s Music ”
My eyes widened. I heard music … following my body receiving multiple buffs to strengthen it. I turned around.
A girl in a colorful dress, so unsuitable for the battlefield, was walking towards us. She was singing with closed eyes as her crimson scales were flaring up in flames. Her chest, a bright yellow-red shone like a flashlight.
I gulped, but I understood why she was here. I nodded. “… We’ll leave the rest to you, Hestia. Send him to hell.”
She stopped singing for a moment, opened her eyes, and showed us a thumbs up. “Leave it to me! Get a well-earned rest, you three! It is time for the finale of the night.”
“GooooooOOONNNN!” Davison cried out and charged at us; however, the earth rumbled and began trapping him, holding him back as he struggled to destroy the ever-growing stone constructs.
We left the area and the moment we did, the music began anew. An arena of fire took shape, trapping the corpse in a cage with the dragon.
From outside, I could see Hestia’s scales and hair flare-up, switching from their iconic crimson to a bright yellow-red similar to the bright solar core in her chest. Her eyes radiated with power, shining through the darkness of the night like torches.
“Solar Beam.”
The flames erupted; every scales’ gap had flames coming out of them, making it look like Hestia was set on fire. It only took a few seconds before their color changed to white.
Hestia’s body jerked back as her mouth grew in size like a chipmunks, only for her to release a beam of pure white fire onto Davison. It was blinding, as if I was looking at the sun, but I could still see what was happening by straining my eyes a bit.
Davison’s flesh was melting, no, even the surrounding rubble was being liquified. The rock constructs, the rubble, the broken manatech. Everything that was close to Davison couldn’t withstand the heat and was slowly turning into lava.
The beam eventually ended with an explosion, releasing what seemed to be a massive amount of scale-dust into the area. Hestia’s body grew blinding white, with hints of crimson from her scale-dust.
That was the description of her [Solar Beam] draconic ability. Considering the rest of her abilities, it wasn’t the most unique ability, but it surely was the strongest. Two bunker-destroying abilities that buffed her stats up while she was in her “overdrive” mode.
It surprised me she was keeping the phase active, but I then noticed Davison’s corpse. Its head and arms had melted down into nothingness but it simply regrew tentacles and eyes as substitutes. It truly was a stubborn eldritch being.
Once it gave another shriek, it charged forward. Hestia simply stood still, looking down at the mindless beast. Her body then flared purple before turning into a full suit of purple armor she called “Dragoon Armor” from that fantasy game she liked talking about, created using her new custom spell [Panzer].
It was her version of the ability [Dracobody], something Farron used in their spars. Also, since buying armor cost a lot of money, she also wanted to relieve our purse until Tasianna and I got our equipment first.
Davison’s corpse punched Hestia, but she simply blocked it with her armor and [Draconic Barrier], nullifying even the knockback. She then casually pierced her claws into his arm and tore it off without any issues before proceeding to remove the remaining limbs one-by-one, leaving only the torso behind.
Davison’s body tried to regenerate its lost flesh, but all its attempts were stopped by Hestia’s scale-dust, exploding and incinerating the limbs before they could grow in size. If she had taken the [Scale-Dust User] Job, she probably could have stopped his regeneration altogether.
Hestia would continue fighting against Davison’s mangled, deformed corpse, letting out a small chuckle as she used him like a punching bag to alleviate her [Battle Frenzy]. However, I had the feeling she was just stalling for time.
Looking at the sky, two massive magic circles were materializing in the sky as they fought, one red and the other white. The more powerful a spell, the longer it needed to fully form its magic circle. Even if we didn’t need to chant due to [Chant Revocation], there was still a preparation time until we could unleash the spell. Without chanting, it was just lessened.
Hestia had the lightning spell [Purple Flash] which helped her cast these large spells instantly by materializing the magic circles in seconds, but the issue was it would consume triple the amount of mana she would have needed to cast those spells normally. Since she held her concert during the night, there wasn’t a sun to help her regenerate mana so she must have tired herself out. She would use up her remaining reserves if she were hasty about it.
It only took a bit longer in the scorching flames for the two circles to be complete.
“Symphonie des Feurergottes. Omnictus,” she said before grabbing onto the limbless torso of the corpse. “Release. Solar Flare!”
The fire on Hestia’s body flared up in size before erupting like a volcano upwards. That was when both [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Omnictus] released, pouring rays of light and waves of inferno onto the Hestia and Davison.
The heat and pressure were so intense it forced us to move back even more, as staying closer was enough to risk our clothes and hair catching fire. The sea of fire released by Hestia didn’t move any further than the area created by her Idol song [Dragon Fire], preventing further collateral damage to the neighborhood. She was isolating everything into a single area.
Like a star, the night was brightened by her white flames … And good god, it was overkill.
Once it ended, the residual heat was still too much for us to approach. Tasianna had to apply [Glacial Protection] and cool the surrounding temperature for us to even get close to Hestia. There we could only see a crater. The alchemy guild’s building was completely vaporized, leaving nothing behind. Speaking about vaporization, so was Davison’s body. There was nothing in the crater except a collapsed dragonewt girl.
The heat at ground zero was the most fearsome, requiring Tasianna to cool down everything with her ice and water magic. Once we could traverse it safely, we approached Hestia. Her breathing was ragged and she was sweating profusely, something she rarely ever did as a fire dragon.
She noticed us and opened her eyes, before showing us another thumbs up.
“Can I get some food, please?”
… Unbelievable.
AbyssRaven Hestia really went and said "Time to overkill."
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