Adam and Ignis were now fighting on two fronts.
The tentacle monster was relentless. Dozens of thick, rune-covered tentacles lashed out from every direction, trying to wrap around Adam’s wings, legs, and Ignis’s body. Every ti they cut or burned one, two more would take its place.
Adam gritted his teeth as he flew in a zigzag pattern, dodging the attacks while carrying Ignis. He fired Void Prism repeatedly, blasting apart tentacles that got too close.
"These things just keep coming!" he growled.
Ignis, still recovering from her earlier big attack, fired smaller but precise Solar Bolts at the tentacles. Her golden flas burned through several of them, but she was clearly running low on mana.
"Adam... I don’t have much left..." she admitted, breathing heavily.
Before Adam could respond, a deep, distorted roar echoed from below.
The Abyssal Shadow Titan had recovered enough to continue the chase. It was still damaged from Ignis’s Blazeheart Nova, but it was closing the distance again. The massive monster raised its remaining arms and hurled several giant shadow projectiles upward like dark spears aid directly at Adam and Ignis.
"Damn it! The Titan’s back too!" Adam cursed.
He was forced to dodge both the tentacles from the front and the shadow spears from below at the sa ti. The situation was becoming extrely dangerous.
One tentacle managed to wrap around Ignis’s waist again, trying to yank her out of Adam’s arms.
"Ignis!" Adam shouted.
Ignis quickly burned it off with the last of her flas, but the effort left her even more exhausted.
Adam’s crimson eyes burned with determination. He looked up at the glowing blue light in the distance, it was getting closer, but the path was heavily guarded by the tentacle monster, and the Titan was catching up from behind.
"We can’t keep fighting both of them forever!" Adam said urgently. "Ignis, hold on tight! I’m going to force our way through!"
He poured every remaining bit of mana into his wings and body. His void-starlight wings glowed brighter as he activated Ouroboros Paradox for defense and prepared to use Cataclysm Tempest to clear a path.
The tentacle monster seed to sense their intention and sent even more tentacles to block their way, while the Titan below roared and accelerated its pursuit.
Adam’s expression turned cold and focused.
"We’re breaking through, right now!"
He activated Cataclysm Tempest, a devastating fusion of his tempest and abyssal powers. A massive swirling storm of void energy and destructive wind exploded outward from his body, tearing through the dense wall of tentacles in front of them. Dozens of thick tentacles were shredded and blown apart in an instant, creating a clear path forward.
Adam shot through the opening at full speed, carrying Ignis as they pushed toward the glowing blue light in the distance.
But the tentacle monster wasn’t done.
The remaining tentacles suddenly moved with terrifying coordination. They didn’t chase, instead, they spread out and began to close in from all sides, trying to form a cage of writhing darkness around Adam and Ignis, cutting off their escape route to the blue light.
"They’re trying to trap us!" Ignis shouted, her voice strained.
Adam’s expression hardened. He tried to fly faster, but more tentacles kept appearing, rapidly shrinking the space around them. The blue light was so close now, just beyond the closing cage of tentacles but they were about to be surrounded.
Ignis, who had almost no mana left, suddenly clenched her fists. Her golden eyes burned with desperate determination.
"I won’t let it end here...!" she growled.
Even though her mana was nearly depleted, she forced out every last bit she had. Golden flas erupted from her body, but this ti, they were different. The flas didn’t just co from her. They seed to ignite from the abyss itself, as if she was burning the darkness around them.
"Abyssal Blaze!!"
A massive wave of golden fire exploded outward from Ignis, spreading in all directions. The flas burned with an unnatural intensity, as if they were consuming the very darkness of the abyss. The tentacles that were trying to close in around them caught fire instantly, writhing and burning as the golden flas spread rapidly across the monster’s body.
The tentacle monster let out a distorted, pained screech as large portions of its body were incinerated by Ignis’s desperate final attack.
Adam didn’t waste the opening. He flew straight through the burning gap with everything he had left.
They broke through.
The cage of tentacles collapsed behind them as Adam and Ignis finally escaped the monster’s encirclent. The blue light was now right in front of them glowing softly, like a portal or a gateway out of this nightmare layer.
"We did it...!" Ignis gasped, her body going limp from exhaustion as she leaned against Adam’s chest. "We’re almost there..."
Adam held her tightly, his crimson eyes fixed on the blue light ahead. His wings were damaged and his mana was running dangerously low, but they had made it.
Adam flew as fast as his damaged wings could carry them. The blue light was now very close, just a few hundred ters ahead.
But as they got nearer, Adam’s expression changed.
From a distance, it had looked like a gentle blue glow. Up close, it was sothing else entirely.
It was a massive, spinning vortex of blue fire burning fiercely like a living fla portal. The fire twisted and rotated violently, forming a swirling gateway that seed to lead sowhere else. The heat coming from it was intense, yet strangely cold at the sa ti.
Surrounding the blue fire portal were dozens of strange skulls creatures Adam had never seen before. So had multiple horns, others had elongated jaws filled with sharp teeth, and so even had what looked like crowns fused into their bone. They floated around the portal like silent guardians, glowing faintly with an eerie blue light.
Adam slowed down slightly, his crimson eyes narrowing.
"...This isn’t a normal portal," he muttered. "It’s made of blue fire... and those skulls... I’ve never seen anything like them before."
Ignis, still weak in his arms, looked at the portal with a mix of hope and fear.
"But... it’s our only way out, right?" she said softly.
Before Adam could answer, the ground behind them suddenly shook violently.
BOOM!
The Abyssal Shadow Titan had jumped with terrifying power. Its massive body landed heavily on a floating ruin just behind them, cracking the stone beneath its weight. The monster was badly burned and missing several arms, but its remaining eyes burned with pure hatred as it glared at them.
At the sa ti, more tentacles began bursting out from the darkness below, rapidly slithering toward Adam and Ignis like hungry snakes.
They were surrounded.
Adam’s jaw tightened. The Titan was already raising its remaining arms to attack, and the tentacles were closing in fast. There was no ti to think, no ti to find another way.
He looked at the spinning blue fire portal one last ti, then down at Ignis in his arms.
"...We have no choice."
Ignis nodded weakly, trusting him completely.
Without another word, Adam shot forward with the last of his strength. He dove straight into the swirling blue fire portal, holding Ignis tightly against his chest.
The mont they touched the blue flas, a powerful force sucked them in. The world around them twisted and warped as they were pulled into the unknown.
Behind them, the Titan roared in fury and the tentacles lunged but they were too late.
Adam and Ignis disappeared into the blue fire portal.
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