One of the problems with fighting elentals was that it was just so damn hard to hit anything that actually hurt them. Weaker ones like what they were fighting now usually had static cores, so at least they were easy to kill once that spot was discovered. That didn’t apply to guardian elentals, of course. It would be too easy that way.
One of the problems with fighting giant, towering monsters that were two or three tis taller than humans was that it was just so damn hard to reach any of their vitals and actually hurt them. Sotis they could be bled out from a thousand cuts to their tree-trunk legs or tripped up and knocked down to bring their squishy organs into lee range. That also rarely applied to massive guardians.
Having to fight both types in one monster is complete bullshit. I miss being able to fly.
Without Living Earth, he wouldn’t have even considered climbing the monster. That was a recipe for disaster, but the soulprint told him exactly where everything was. More than that, it helped him add resistance to the elental’s body. It wasn’t enough to stop the monster, of course. A re D-rank soulprint could never overpower even the weakest elental.
But it could—and did—slow the monster down. Instead of surging forward with deadly speed to sar Sorin into fleshy red paste on its body, it moved as though shackled to great weight. Slowly, its arm ca down to flatten him where he gripped its leg. By the ti it arrived, he’d already thrown himself up past the ‘knee’ of the limb.
The limb swept upwards, but Sorin simply loosened Spider Climb and leaped onto it, tightening his grip back up after he switched positions. The arm carried him the rest of his way to his goal, where he promptly unloaded a scatter shot of empowered force blades into the elental. It didn’t have the pure penetrating power of Rue’s attack, but he didn’t have her pin-point accuracy and needed to compensate for that.
A small avalanche of stone fell out of the main body, revealing nothing interesting as far as Sorin could tell. The elental didn’t seem to react to the damage either, not beyond shifting its leg to begin the process of absorbing the loose material back in.
“The core’s moving up into its chest now!” Rue yelled. Another force spear struck about five feet over Sorin’s head, though not with enough force to break through the stone this ti.
He appreciated that, since he wasn’t looking to get smacked in the skull by the rubble on its way down. He also knew that he almost certainly wouldn’t reach that spot in ti to destroy the core before it slipped away again, not without resorting to his own ranged attacks.
Hard to get the penetrating power at range, and of course the damn thing is made up of a thousand individual rocks, so Soften can’t do shit here. On the other hand, Force Drill might be even more effective, depending on just how strong the elental bonding is. Certainly feels solid based on how hard it is to slow down a limb.
Force Drill was also an extrely draining ability, however, and it wouldn’t actually hurt the guardian unless Sorin managed to hit the core, not to ntion the added strain of holding Spider Climb while he cast it. Tossing out a dozen of them over the next half a minute in hopes of blindly striking an invisible, moving target on a fra that was now close to twenty feet tall wasn’t a winning strategy. If anything, it was likely to leave him completely dry and defenseless.
You’d think Living Earth would help out here, but nope. Damn core just looks like another random rock in a pile that won’t stop growing.
“More beetles!” Yoru called out, prompting Sorin to pay more attention to the dizzying torrent of feedback Blind Sense was blasting his brain with. It was easier in so ways to see through a sandstorm, where at least everything was more or less uniform in size and speed.
Beetles ant less incoming damage to the guardian while his team dealt with them, but the truth was that they weren’t really inflicting any real damage to begin with. His only concern was keeping Rue calling out the location of the core for him to chase. For everyone else, the beetles were more like environntal hazards that had locked onto them and were willing to chase them around.
Yep, flying would make this all so much easier. Number one weapon against earth elentals.
“Keep them off Rue. She’s my eyes,” Sorin ordered.
Another spear cracked into the elental, this ti right at the shoulder. She didn’t hold back, either, so when it ripped through, the entire arm fell off. For a mont, Sorin thought she’d broken the core and the fight was at its end. Rue’s sulfurous swearing quickly corrected that misunderstanding.
“Main body or arm?” he asked.
“Back across the chest! It doesn’t seem to want to go down to where you are. Maybe we can corner it if you keep climbing up.”
That was easier said than done. While the elental was humanoid in shape, that was apparently more preference than necessity. A relatively small arm only three feet long sprouted from the monster’s stomach and whipped down to smash into Sorin. At the sa ti, the stones he’d been clinging to heaved, tossing him up into the path of the arm.
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The choice was to either let go, or take the hit and hope that Iron Bulwark could keep him safe. It probably would, or at least it would blunt the damage enough for him to hold on. Living Earth gave him feedback on how fast the arm was moving and how heavy it was. He’d taken bad hits before. But the anima cost just to hold his position wasn’t a good trade.
All of that flashed through his mind in an instant, calculations made almost subconsciously that reached the answer. Sorin released Spider Climb and let himself fall. The floor ca up at him in a rush, but more worriso was the leg suddenly swinging around with double its normal mass. It absorbed the arm into it!
Unbidden, the mory of passing up Air Step when he’d purchased his first soulprint ca to his mind. Yep, could really use that about now. Well, I’ve got the next best thing.
Free casting in combat was anima intensive and ntally draining. It was certainly much more difficult than using a soulprint or taking his ti to make the structure of the ability he was mimicking as smooth and efficient as possible. Sorin was good at it, but he didn’t know how much longer the fight was going to run, and there was no retreat if he overestimated himself.
He ford a sloppy Air Step, just long enough to throw himself sideways without ever touching the ground. The leg clipped his boot anyway. It hit him with enough force to completely spin him around midair and flare the extra layer of protection he rarely needed from Iron Bulwark. Even through that, he was almost certain he’d broken several bones in his foot.
By the ti he actually hit the floor, he could already feel the fracture starting to nd. Vendis was casting a spell to help him while sprinting across the arena to maintain distance from a beetle that had fixated on him. The quiet healer displayed remarkable agility in dodging rocks moving across the floor to join the main mass.
Wincing, Sorin leaped to his feet. Even with the healing, the foot was still broken, but he didn’t have ti to wait. The guardian elental would crush him if he stood still. Dashing out of its range, he told Rue, “Switch to plan B. This thing is way bigger than we thought it’d be.”
The original plan had seed a lot more workable when they’d thought the guardian was going to be two or three tis bigger than a person and that they’d be able to focus on just one monster. The additional environntal hazards, not to ntion the summons, made everything a lot more complicated. With the elental still growing and nothing else showing any signs of getting better, it was ti for a change in strategy.
“Can you help herd it?” Rue asked.
“Doubtful. You’re just going to have to do your best. Pace yourself. I’ll keep nearby for when it’s ti.”
That left Sorin with nothing to do but dodge. He danced through the arena, slipping past stone limbs that hit the floor so hard it shook the tower and sidestepping rushing stones, so small enough to hold in his hand, others large enough to crush him completely. So of them rolled fast. So were slow. So moved in a straight line toward the elental. Others swooped in wide curves.
None of it was predictable, and even though it was worse near the guardian than anywhere else, Sorin was still impressed with his team for keeping on their feet. This was by far the most hectic fight he’d been in with them, and they were rising to the occasion beautifully.
Now we just need a decisive end. No pressure, Rue, but if you can’t pull this off, sobody’s probably going to die while I set up the free casts to do it myself. I won’t be able to hold the elental’s attention at the sa ti, and you’re all at your limit keeping track of everything else without adding another variable.
The plan now was to wait for the core to slip into a limb where it was isolated, blast that limb right off the body, and then let Sorin swoop in to pulverize it with a force drill. Now that he was sure Rue could separate a limb and he could commit wide-area destruction on it, it was their best option. Unfortunately, without Sorin actively pursuing the core, it was proving to be a lot harder to herd it into a vulnerable position.
The longer the fight dragged on, the more likely it beca that soone took an injury bad enough to drop them. If that happened, they weren’t getting back up. They’d be lucky to still be alive by the ti anyone else got to them to help. Dealing with that also ant everyone was slower to act, slower to react, and that a lot of potential openings went by unexploited. It made for a deadly no-win situation.
Finally, after firing off at least two dozen ‘fake’ force spears to try to chase the core away, Rue scread, “Now!” and blasted the elental’s right arm off its body. Sorin triggered Speed Burst and was already waiting when it landed. In fact, he didn’t even let it land for fear that the core would bounce out of range and he’d lose it again.
A force drill hit the arm, causing it to twist around and deform for a fraction of a second before finally giving way to the incredible pressure the magic was exerting on it. Stone exploded into a cloud of dust that rolled out across the arena fifty feet in every direction, and not a single piece of that arm made it to the floor whole.
Did we get it? It’s not falling. Co on. Fall.
Then a surge of anima hit him hard enough that it nearly took him off his feet. Sorin staggered back a step, and it was a good thing he did. The rest of the elental lost coherence and imdiately turned into a cascading pile of loose stone. He had to trigger Speed Burst again just to avoid being buried alive, but it was a lot easier to do now that there weren’t hundreds of stones racing around the arena and tripping him up.
“That was insane,” Yoru finally said, breaking the silence. “Nice not to have the rank up pain though.”
“Only because we already went through it last week.”
Sorin could feel the tower attuning his soul to the Floor 6 portal, and the staircase even opened up like a mouth unfolding in the middle of the floor to let them escape now that the guardian was dead. That earned it nothing but ire from the battered team, none of whom wanted to deal with descending back the way they ca.
“Anything valuable on the guardian?” Yoru asked.
Sorin shook his head. “That’s the bitch of killing elentals. Once you kill them, they’re just common dirt and rocks. Or air, or water, or whatever. You know what I’m saying.”
“I suppose we might as well walk through that portal and see what the Antechamber has for us this ti, then.”
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