As Besal pulled them out of range, a dark cloying miasma flooded out. It was different than before. “Drop me,” Hal insisted.
“Right into its breath?” Besal asked, though he trusted in Hal and dropped him straight into the creature’s open maw some twenty feet below.
Hal took a deep breath and let the miasmatic fog roll over him. His armor held against the assault, but his skin still burned as if he had fallen asleep in the sun all day. Blisters formed on his skin as the acidic air did its work.
But the damage was less than he was expecting. Only a tenth of his HP was shaved off, and that was a worthy exchange in his opinion.
Knowing better than to use fire on such a beast, Hal inverted his grip on [Emissary] and Spliced insect instead of shadow.
Instantly the world darkened, save for the sapphire glow atop the creature’s head that marked it clearly enough. With that faint light reflected in the waterfalls around the descending platform, it was just barely enough to see by.
The dark shadow that swirled over [Emissary] was replaced by a biting swarm of insects.
Hal hit the creature’s maw with the sword leading. It plunged deep into the bottom jaw, and despite his improved armor, Hal felt the Voidbolger’s many sharp teeth tear into his foot and his knee as he drove [Emissary] deep into the creature’s mouth taking another 5% of his HP.
In the same instant, he removed a hand and conjured a goblin bomb. Only, this bomb didn’t sizzle with a burning wick. It hissed and buzzed like a cloud of gnats.
Pushing off the creature, Hal pulled free his sword and chucked Bomb Toss into the creature’s rapidly shutting mouth. It snapped shut on the bomb and nearly took Hal’s foot with it.
The insect-aspected Bomb Toss exploded, blasting open the Voidbolger’s mouth as a cloud of biting insects swarmed out. At first, Hal dove to the side, thinking it was another breath attack before he understood the truth of it.
They were eating the creature’s oily hide, but not fast enough.
On it came, whipping tendrils with wild abandon at Hal. Besal dove at it and cut it with his blade, but any damage he did seemed almost inconsequential. Every strike of Besal’s claws or the longsword was met with a faint coppery shimmer.
Scrambling this way and that, using his [Chain of Binding] to alter his trajectory to avoid a full-force hit, Hal was barely able to keep up.
He lobbed another Bomb Toss at the creature, but it was a half-hearted affair, and the Voidbolger easily swatted it out of the air. The bomb exploded, and the tip of that vine was reduced to a seeping nub, but it had more tendrils than Hal could ever hope to cut off.
There was no parrying, no turning aside the powerful bulk of the Voidbolger’s vines that came on with the striking speed of a snake and the physical prowess of a charging bull.
One hit was all it would take, and he would careen over the edge of the platform. His only hope would be that Besal could save him, and he didn’t want to tempt fate twice.
One tendril came crashing down, and Hal whipped out to the side with the [Chain of Binding], avoiding the attack entirely. As he did, he summoned Divebomb. The phantasm of a great diving bird struck the Voidbolger.
There was a bright flash of gold and copper light as the creature was struck. It reeled from the impact, but if it was badly hurt, it didn’t show it. Instead, the Voidbolger came on with even greater ferocity.
One, two, went its vines again, trying to trap Hal between its strikes. The monster took up most of the platform, but with Hal’s Convergence and his [Chain of Binding], he was able to largely stay one step ahead of it.
Besal continued to pelt it with minor damage, but it was enough of a constant distraction that Hal wasn’t its sole focus the entire time.
But the creature was not an unthinking beast. It had intelligence. Whether that was imparted from its creator or some facet of the Voidbolger itself, Hal didn’t know.
What he did know was that every strike came closer than the last. He was spending all his time avoiding getting hit, and not nearly enough attacking. But every time he tried, he felt like he was playing into the thing’s plans. Fortunately, he was racking up the Patient Offense stacks with every narrow evasion.
It wasn’t a fight he could keep up. Already he was slowing, tiring. Every dive and dodge needed the aid of his [Chain of Binding] so he wouldn’t fly up as the platform continued its descent.
As the monster breathed in, rearing back, Besal dove down casting Divebomb. The spell took the Voidbolger straight in its opened maw. It choked on the spell, preventing it from using its breath attack.
Suddenly finding the Voidbolger open, Hal slapped his hand down onto the ground and cast Bloodrake. Spiked ethereal chains leaped up from the platform. They rattled and clanked as the spiked metal tightened its grip on the Voidbolger.
The creature was crushed beneath the tightening grip of the wrist-thick metal links. Its tendrils coiled beneath it, and Hal redoubled his efforts to tighten the chains on the beast.
Besal laid into the creature with everything he had. Standing atop the creature’s head, he stabbed and slashed with claw and blade. The sapphire nodules on its head burst with showers of phosphorescent blue light.
Hal felt the chains bite harder, inflicting their bleed effect. The effect was dramatically empowered by the stacks of Patient Offense. Wounds burst forth with thick sap-like blood. For each of the sapphire nodules on its head that burst, the Voidbolger seemed to weaken.
Or so they thought.
With a furious roar of rage, the likes of which nearly froze the marrow in Hal’s bones, the Voidbolger burst from its confines. Hal’s spectral chains broke and burst apart into disparate motes of mana.
But the Voidbolger was not finished.
As it broke the chains, it leaped into the air. Coupled with the downward momentum of the platform, it sailed through the air. The platform lit up with a Premonition glow, driving him to move faster with Preternatural Dodge.
A pair of trunk-thick vines crashed down as it tried to whip Hal. He dodged one, reversed direction with his [Chain of Binding], and dodged the other only to realize that it wasn’t trying to hit him.
One look above told Hal that the Voidbolger had taken a page out of his own book. Using its vines, it curled the tapered ends of the limbs over the platform and pulled its bulk down faster than it would have fallen.
There was no way Hal could get out from under its massive bulk as the Voidbolger crashed on top of him.
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As the Voidbolger came down, Hal knew he was in trouble. Even with Preternatural Dodge, there was no way he could get out of range. But he could cast a spell with his enhanced speed.
Hal reached for a spell he had almost entirely forgotten about. One that had a much higher MP cost than any of his other spells. All of his movements were sped up by Preternatural Dodge. Usually, that would be exclusively used to get out of the way.
Instead, Hal used it to speed up his spellcasting.
In the blink of an eye, nearly a quarter of his MP was gone. The spell, Manatorpor, coalesced as a swirling orb of blue-green mana in the palm of Hal’s hand.
He sent it out toward the center of the platform. Even as he did, it expanded. The basketball-sized sphere doubled, then doubled again, exponentially expanding with each passing moment until it enveloped the entire platform.
With a radius of 30ft, Manatorpor could easily cover an area twice the size of the magically descending platform. But what was most important, was that the spell caught the Voidbolger as it came down.
It didn’t stop it or even slow it to the point that the spell’s description would have one assume. The Voidbolger was too strong for that.
What the spell did do was allow Hal to narrowly avoid being turned into a red smear.
Paired with his enhanced speed courtesy of Preternatural Dodge, the Voidbolger’s descent was slowed just enough that he could slide between a few of its coiling vines it used for legs.
The platform s
huddered under the colossal blow that nearly took Hal’s left arm clean off. Try as he might to slip between two trunk-thick vines, Hal wasn’t able to get his [Chain of Binding] out of the way in time.
The [Chain of Binding] ripped from his grasp, bloodying his fingers. Sandwiched between the Voidbolger’s limb and the metal platform, Hal knew he wouldn’t be getting it back anytime soon.
With a snarl of unchecked aggression, Hal chain-cast Goblin Rush over and over again. [Emissary] weaved about him, adding to the chorus of striking phantasmal blades. Goring Blade transitioned into Rending Steel as he struck with every ounce of savagery he had.
He could not stay beneath the creature, his only hope was that he could cut himself out fast enough to avoid being crushed.
Because as soon as the Voidbolger realized it had not killed him, it would crush its bulk on top of him.
Only Hal’s Manatorpor and his rampant aggression gave the Voidbolger enough pause for him to avoid that grisly fate. Dark bilious ichor streamed from its many wounds. The smell nearly knocked him senseless. His lungs burned like fire.
Stalwart Soul Activation.
You partially resist the effects of Noxious Wounds.
You are Poisoned.
Staggering out from between the seeping wounds he had just carved, Hal stumbled as the toe of his boot caught a raised section of the platform. Rather than resist it, he collapsed his legs as Angram had taught him and tucked his shoulder.
The move saved his life as a sweeping tendril as thick around as two Giels whisked over his head at the same time as Hal rolled through the stumble.
Getting his feet beneath him, he turned and pushed to a standing position. And he noticed something that made both himself and the Voidbolger pause.
Besal was glowing.
A crimson haze surrounded him, his wings grew larger, more demonic. The [Bone Longsword] in his hand transformed into a wicked thing with barbed teeth instead of a straight blade.
His roar split the air, a guttural rage that resonated within Hal and only then did he realize what was off.
After having used so much Beast Magic, he should have been at least at Strain Affliction Level 1. A quick glance showed Hal at 0 Strain.
Besal was taking it all upon himself. Somehow, Hal’s strain was empowering him.
Hal wasted no time in pelting the Voidbolger with every spell at his disposal.
The bleeding, wounded thing thrashed about as Divebombs crashed into it from every angle. Premonition lit his way, Preternatural Dodge granted him the speed he needed, while Manatorpor slowed the behemoth enough that Hal could narrowly avoid its killing blows.
And all the while, Besal grew stronger. His body of shadow and starlight grew denser, more corporeal. For every terrible rending strike of that brutal sword, a barbaric claw-strike followed in its wake.
The platform grew thick with the sludgy lifeblood of the Voidbolger. No longer held back by his Strain, Hal’s barrage of Beast Magic was only rivaled by the sheer ferocity of Besal’s altered form.
When his MP began to bottom out, he found a ready wellspring within Besal’s largely untapped pool. Using Assimilation, he siphoned off Besal’s offered MP to continue his magical assault.
For a moment, Hal worried that Besal was reverting to his Beast-self but there was something different about him this time. Not only was Besal attacking with enhanced fervor, but he was also carefully choosing his attacks.
Every attack severed or hampered a swinging limb that would have come close to Hal, if not hit him entirely.
Rearing back its bloodied maw, the Voidbolger breathed in. Besal dove in to attack, the monster's breath attacks made it vulnerable for a second or two. And with their enhanced speed, there wasn’t much danger to the telegraphed attacks.
The Voidbolger seemed to know this, and Hal’s only warning was that he had no glowing Premonition lighting up the platform.
Before he could register what that meant, or that the Voidbolger was even capable of such a feint, Besal dove in.
Fury incarnate, Besal bellowed and slashed at the inky flesh atop its head. His attack was swatted away as the Voidbolger shut its mouth with a snap and reached up with another tendril to ensnare him.
Through their connection, Hal could feel the life being crushed out of Besal. And still, the man fought on with every ounce of strength he could bring to bear.
But it wasn’t going to be enough. Hal could already feel Besal’s lifeforce ebb.
Using Convergence to empower his jump, Hal leaped upon the thick tendril crushing the life from Besal.
I really hope this works, he thought as he stabbed [Emissary] deep into the flesh of the Voidbolger. At the same time, he unleashed every drop of mana the sword held within it in one colossal burst.
The Voidbolger’s limb bulged weirdly and began to bubble along its length before it burst open in a shower of reeking blood. The limb fell free and Besal rolled out of its limp grasp as they both hit the floor.
Like a loose garden hose with the water pressure turned up, the Voidbolger’s severed limb flailed and sprayed black bilious fluid in great gouts. It washed over the platform and Hal watched as Besal was carried on the flood over the edge and into the darkness around below.
Hal fought to stay on the platform, but his footing was slick and his essence limbs that he conjured to try and grip the platform couldn’t find much purchase on the metal.
He watched as his [Chain of Binding] was carried on the flood of dark reeking fluid and was swallowed by the dark. That was one of the last heirlooms he had from Thirty-seven.
Shouting his denial, Hal tried to wade through the sludge that flowed and threatened to spill him over the edge. But he simply could not hold his ground. Once, twice, three times, he stumbled and lost more ground.
He barely managed to lob two Bomb Tosses at the creature. And while the insect-aspected bombs bit and ate at the creature, it simply was not enough.
The Voidbolger leaned back and took a deep breath. The orange glow of Premonition covered the entire platform. Without Besal to help him, Hal would have to time his jump perfectly.
In short order, the Voidbolger had soundly turned the tables on him. He was low on MP, down an ally, and out of options. Though the Voidbolger seemed to be bleeding out, it hardly noticed it.
His Manatorpor bought him the fraction of a second he needed to leap with all his might over the noxious billowing fumes that rolled out of the Voidbolger’s mouth.
Dark inky tendrils stabbed at him as soon as he landed back down on the platform, and only through dumb luck did he manage to avoid being gored completely.
He slipped and banged his knee painfully on the metal platform. Besal was still below him somewhere. He felt certain he would know if something worse had befallen him.
“You’ve forced my hand,” Hal said through gritted teeth.
Out came his left hand, he focused on the Founder Sigil Dominate. A surge of gold lightning leaped from the mark floating over the back of his left hand toward the Voidbolger.
A shield of shimmering copper deflected the magical essence and sent it scattering into the dark. The waterfalls around the platform reflected the flash of gold and copper, searing the vision on the back of Hal’s eyes.
He stared dumbfounded, all but certain it would have worked as a streaking tendril whipped at his head.
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Hal snapped back to his senses, and in a scrambling motion, he sheathed [Emissary] and dropped down to one knee. The tendril whipped right over his head, ruffling his hair and the hood on the back of his neck.
Both hands dove through the sludge to the metal beneath. He looked up at the Voidbolger, trying to peer at the mage within it. The intelligence controlling the monster. “I’ve got more tricks yet,” he snarled.
With all of his might, Hal used Mana Investiture. The metal was already weakened from the sludge, but it still drained all of Hal’s MP as he frantically tried to replenish it with Assimilation.
The flooring began to crack as he focused on using Mana Investiture to break the metal. His last resort had been to Dominate the thing. Barring that, he would have to send them both into the abyss and hope that Besal could catch him.
A screech echoed in the darkness as the platform buckled and shifted as Hal’s mana broke it down. Motes of blue mana, Hal’s mana, drifted up through the sludge like blue embers.
“I really hope you’re able to catch me, Besal,” Hal subvocalized.
When he received no response, he didn’t slow or cease. There would be no turning back. This was the course he had chosen, and he would see it to the end.
He only hoped that if this spelled his death, that his Manaseed would still be there to revive him.
Pushing those grim thoughts aside, Hal funneled one last burst of mana into the large metal disc. He didn’t need to break it down completely, only enough that it would fail to hold up the massive creature.
And fail it did.
With a resounding and ominous creak, the metal platform began to crack. Spiderwebbed fractures made themselves known only by the sudden disappearance of the sludge as it dripped into the newly formed channels.
The cracks widened into rifts. Pieces of the platform buckled and fell away. Both Hal and the Voidbolger fell into the dark, tumbling end over end.
Without any visual references, Hal couldn’t be sure where he was much less how far away he was from the ground. The Voidbolger, with only a few of its sapphire orbs remaining atop its head, was in worse shape than Hal.
The Voidbolger opened wide its bleeding maw and unleashed a stream of acidic fumes at him, but it proved hilariously ineffective. They were falling at such a speed that the dangerous fumes of its breath attacks were whipped away above their heads before they ever found their mark.
Unfortunately, Hal was almost entirely tapped out. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t use another spell. His Stamina was all but spent, and his HP was hovering around 35%.
Beastborne Page 75