Limitless Path

Beth was hesitant to use her Presence, despite the lack of damage on their part, though not for lack of trying. The beast was just so tough that neither of them was able to really dish out anything that serious, some of Beth's best hits spiderwebbing its tough shell, while Blood did little more than scratch the joints and redirect a few close-call punches. It was a really frustrating battle, as they hadn't really done much damage, or taken that much damage, though they had been going for several minutes at this point.

Beth had tried to hit the same places on the enemy repeatedly, spreading the cracks and trying to push the damage deeper into its body. Their natural cooperation was keeping the powerful beast on the back foot, which brought even more openings in the creature's guard for Beth to exploit. Blood kept to her strategy, not necessarily trying to cripple limbs but just to interrupt the beast's movements, both its steps and its massive, predictable swings. Her strikes left a lot of room for Beth to work in, the Brawler continuously pounding the same spot on the creature's torso until it broke, cracking apart with a vicious snapping sound.

This only served to enrage the beast, its swings and stomping movements coming even faster and hitting even harder, Blood now struggling to deflect the swings of its arms even a bit. Every strike from the creature made a whistling, screaming noise as it tore apart the air with its passage. Beth focused even more, everything unnecessary falling away as she hammered the same area over and over, first one strike, then the next, her fist pounding the side of the golem-like creature right below where its heart would be if it were flesh-and-blood. The area cracked and shattered, Beth's piston strikes smashing the area into a shattered crater, her fist the meteor destroying the ground of its flesh.

The damage started impeding the beast's movement after another couple minutes, Beth feeling relief that they were actually doing something to this monster. Though, she didn't know if it was really a monster, as the terminology was a little difficult to parse sometimes. Most things, even highly aggressive creatures that usually wouldn't occur naturally and were created basically only through mana, were categorized as beasts. Regular animals still existed, not made crazy by mana and able to very slowly level over time, but that was neither here nor there. Monsters, on the other hand, were creatures that had been totally corrupted by mana, their beings twisted into something unnatural and fell. They would often have much greater cunning than beasts, though nothing like the intelligence and self-actualization of a sentient being; at least, not until they were at a much, much higher level.

Beth's thoughts about categorization were interrupted by a large change in the beast, both her and Blood leaping back away from it instantly, their finely honed battle senses screaming of danger. It started roaring, the sound so powerful that it pushed the air around it back and pressed against the handful of nearby trees like the wind of a great storm. Its skin, or rocky exterior, or shell, or whatever it was started cracking even further, the shattering sound echoing out between the trees and making Beth grit her teeth from the volume and shrieking pitch. Light leaked from the cracks across the beast's body as its scream crescendoed before the entire shell exploded, fragments of the rock-like exterior whistling through the air, leaving glittering trails in their wake. Trails that continued as those fragments smashed through trees and rocks and even carved long furrows in the dirt.

Beth punched two fragments out of the air, grunting from the sheer amount of kinetic energy that just those pieces carried before leaping back once again, just avoiding a fast claw swipe. She stared at the new beast, or old beast remade into something new, watching something that gave her a massive sense of danger, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck standing up, as much as it could under her armor. The beast had shed its smooth, blocky exterior for one that was much slimmer and rougher. Standing eight feet tall, it had long, gangly limbs, its arms too long compared to the rest of its thin frame. Its legs were multi-jointed, with several knees on each leg, though it appeared that only gave it more mobility. Its hide was a bright white, though it had darker spots of a dirty gold around the center of its chest, forehead, thighs, and hands. Its head was sleeker and smaller, with large, dark red eyes and a huge, too-wide mouth lined with rows of glistening fangs.

Beth suddenly ducked, pulled out of her quick analysis by a punch from the beast screaming directly towards the center of her face. She chopped up with her left arm, keeping her right up in guard as she tried to deflect the punch. She was slightly surprised that her fist pushed the beast's arm up and to the side, also stopping its forward momentum as it had rushed her to throw that punch. It appeared that this transformation had lowered the beast's STR, or made it more difficult for it to apply it, while increasing its speed. Shedding that thick, heavy carapace had likely gotten rid of a good bit of weight and even hindrance in terms of its joints and movements, but it appeared that the shell was even more intrinsically tied to the beast, as shedding it had dropped the beast's overall power. It had made the decision, or perhaps even was forced to, sacrifice STR for DEX, though it looked like it also sacrificed at least some of its hardened defenses.

Beth knew that this was the moment, activating her Presence for the first time this fight and exploding forward. A Presence was a force multiplier, and her force was greater than ever, with her speed having increased and her stats even higher than the last time she had used this particular power. The speed increase of the crazy monster in front of her was now practically nothing, Beth blurring around its claw slashes even as the crown finished settling on her head. Her fists lashed out, slamming into its white and rough golden body like rockets fired from a machine gun; pushing herself to the max as the beast lifted off the ground, the earth around them cracking as waves of force blasted out from each thundering impact of her gauntlets against rough, stony flesh.

Between one moment and the next, she charged up and released a massive blast through her right arm, the monster shooting away from her like a bullet, smashing through trees and debris and parts of the terrain before crashing into a ridge of rock. A shockwave exploded from its landing point, tearing apart trees and plants in the area as hunks of stone tumbled through the air and impacted the ground with heavy thumps. Before the dust could clear out, Beth was already there, bursting through the cloud and slamming into the monster, lifting it off the ground and driving it backwards through rock and stone, holding it with her left hand as she smashed her right arm into it, hammering its face and torso over and over again until, with an ear shattering scream, it struck back with a sledgehammer blow that broke her grip and sent Beth bouncing back across the shattered terrain.

The monster didn't have a chance to capitalize on the strike before a tall, beautiful woman glowing with power burst through the dust, both arms slashing out through the last of the floating dirt. Energy exploded from her as she passed, not stopping to confront the monster but instead disappearing back into the torn and clouded surroundings. Ten lashes of blood red energy slammed into the monster, concentrated in the same area, almost on the same point, ripping its coarse skin and causing another overwhelmingly loud, shrieking scream to burst from the monster. Before it could do more than shut its mouth, Blood reappeared again, even quicker this time, emerging from the last of the still settling dirt to slash the creature's back with an even more strongly glowing claw attack, moving so close that the tips of her claws dug through the rough and dry flesh of the beast, delivering the energy into its skin.

The beast spun rapidly, lashing out with both arms, its long, black and golden claws just catching a bit of dark red fur, and perhaps a little blood, though with Blood, it was hard to tell. It spun again, trying to track Blood's movements, only to spin again and raise its arms, managing just a partial block as Beth's fist crashed into its skull, leaving it no time to recover as she hammered it again, and yet again, knocking it back and dealing some serious damage. There were visible cracks running across its tough hide now, and it let out a scream that was far more warbling than any noise it had made so far. It attempted to engage with her, but she blurred around and through its punches and kicks, twisting back and forth in something that would have just been a smudge in their vision to any but the Senior Enforcers. Every second, as she twisted and blurred, a *Bang* would ring out from the two, proof that another devastating blow had landed on the monster's tough hide.

A handful of seconds later, Blood appeared just as fast and silently as the last few times, not moving at quite the speed Beth was, but close to it. An impressive feat, considering that Beth was burning her Presence, and her stamina, at a rate almost visible to the naked eye, the energy rushing out of her like a broken faucet. The wolf didn’t dart around the monster this time, however, as she slammed both claws into shallow wounds on the creature's back and ripped downward with all her might, continuously pushing mana through both her arms and Blood Queen's Claws as she tore apart the monster’s body from within. That should have been the end of it right there, if it were any lesser beast, but this was a powerful monster, dozens of levels higher than them, and with many tricks up its non-existent sleeves.

Instead of dying, the monster screamed, a wave of force filled with light and heat exploding outward from its body in a sphere, knocking both girls back, though Blood didn't stop slashing the whole way. They corrected their pitches in-air and landed on their feet, watching as dark lines of black and glowing lines of gold spread from the golden patch on the monster's chest across its whole body, like worms of power burrowing through the creature's veins. All the damage they had done to it healed rapidly, easily visible to the naked eye, Blood informing Beth of the heavy wounds she had dealt to the monster's back vanishing in an instant. The light around the creature dimmed and it flexed and twisted, stretching its arms as it reveled in its newfound power, the lowering of its head to stare at Beth with a gleam in its red eye from under its heavy brow showing its eagerness for more violence.

Violence the two girls were all too happy to give the monster, despite whatever weird magic had just healed it and, if Beth's senses were anywhere near correct, made it much stronger. Just as the creature was finishing whatever crazy power-up it was going through, Beth and Blood both howled at the same time, energy pouring from them in such a quantity that the air around them trembled and cracked. The wolves of Beth's crown seemed to snarl and yowl, ready for blood, as energy coursed across Blood's body, making it hard to even see her form, though it was clearly still human.

The two surged forward at the same time, approaching the monster from opposite sides as it readied to meet Beth, disregarding the wolf behind. A mistake on both counts, as meeting Beth head-on wasn't going to work out for it, nor was it good to ignore Blood, regardless of her positioning. The strange elite monster might have powered up, causing Beth to sense danger oozing from it, but even after its two transformations, its own danger senses seemed non-existent. Not entirely surprising, if it were a beast, but monsters were usually cleverer and more perceptive, though they could also display a base level of arrogance not present in any beast for many hundreds of levels.

That arrogance was not helping its survival chances, as the monster threw itself forward when Beth was a few steps away, though those steps were mere instants in a fight of this level. The creature lashed out with its claws, trying to eviscerate her, but Beth flowed forward and to the side, punching her left arm out and under the monster's own left, pushing its arm up and to the side. She continued the motion, sliding her left arm over the monster's left shoulder and around its neck, exerting her tremendous STR to throw the creature's torso downward so fast the air cracked in response, though that was nothing compared to the explosive noise as Beth twisted her hips and brought her left knee up to slam directly into the monster's solar plexus. A noise reminding her of the loudest clap of thunder she had ever heard, so loud it cracked windows near its epicenter, rang out as her knee cratered the bottom of the foe's chest, lifting it up and launching it back.

Back directly into Blood, swinging both of her claws so fast they howled, the amount of energy pouring out of her staining the whole area a deep crimson as energy waves the size of trees smashed into the back of the flying monster, all focused on a single point. The creature's momentum was stopped so abruptly its limbs snapped back with crackling sounds as it flew back towards Beth, starting to tumble in the air. That spinning motion meant nothing to either of them, the boss again achieving a sudden stop as Beth had followed along with it after the brutal knee, right there when Blood's slashes landed. Her fist and the spinning monster's head met at an odd angle, though that didn't stop the impact from cracking its skull with another thundering boom, the earth around Beth's feet cratering for half a dozen feet from the transferred force.

The monster tumbled towards Blood, but righted itself in the air, not having taken quite as much damage as the two had hoped. It lashed out with all four limbs in a series of brutal strikes that matched even the girls' greatly enhanced speeds, Blood swaying left and right slightly as she fired out ten attacks in less than two seconds, countering the creature strike-for-strike. Golden and crimson light alternated as they clashed, the air trembling as the energy flickered and flashed, the handful of nearby trees painted and repainted in quick bursts.

The problem for the creature was it was fighting two opponents that were at or even above its overall level of power, despite its thirty-level advantage. And while it attempted to rend Blood into her namesake, and that took less than two seconds for the whole exchange to play out, two seconds was an eternity in fights of their level. Two seconds gave Beth more than enough time to charge her body, literally her entire being from the top of her head to the tips of her toes, with mana, dumping her entire reservoir into herself, reinforcing two skills in succession. Some of the mana was pushed into Beastly Body to reinforce herself even further, while the rest built into a twisted pattern within her that reflected the basics of how Crush was supposed to be channeled. Only, compared to the way she normally used the skill, this was a Rembrandt set next to a child's finger painting.

Beth appeared beside the beast at the perfect moment, just as it was finished exchanging strikes with Blood, the wolf sporting some new cuts on the joints of her arms and one of her palms. Beth was already swinging as she appeared, the monster given a tiny fraction of a second to react, only able to turn itself slightly to try to dampen the blow. It simply wasn't enough, as Beth's fist slammed into the chest of their foe, just slightly off-center, a reverberating *BOOM* echoing out as the mana within her body dumped out through her right fist in an instant. The amount of force the skill imparted was so great that Beth watched the rough, heavy skin and dry, tough flesh of the monster vaporize at the point of impact, skin and muscle and bone and what passed for organs pulverized so powerfully they turned into a mist as the wave of force traveled through their enemy's body.

The monster flew away like a cannon shot, what was left of its body rocketing one way while the remaining pieces of its right arm spun nearly the opposite, sturdy enough despite no longer being attached that several trees and an old stone and concrete wall cracked and shattered before the pieces came to a stop. The creature itself eventually slammed into a small hill nearly two hundred yards away, a rocky mound of dirt a few hundred feet or more across and eighty or ninety feet high, dirt and stone and muck and mud fountaining into the air in a messy, gross geyser. Beth and Blood were both fully in battle mode and didn't hesitate for a moment, pursuing before the body had struck the ground, two silver and red blurs shooting across the ground.

Before they reached the remains of the hill, a scream shattered the late afternoon air, more dirt and rock exploding upward as their enemy burst from the depths of the hill. Its eyes glowed a very deep red and Beth could see that its torso was mostly reformed, though it still lacked an arm. Neither of them paused, however, continuing to charge it as it screamed once more, even louder, the ground near its feet cracking from the force of the noise released from its very core. It counter-charged them as they got close, meeting them a dozen feet from where it had been standing with a massive swipe of its long, gangly arm. Beth slid under Blood who spun over her, the girl punching the arm with both fists while the wolf slashed with both claws, the very air tasting crimson from the amount of energy put into the slash.

Despite the damage they had dealt, the monster was still strong, pushing Beth back with enough force to crack knuckles in her hands, likely fracturing a few even through her armor. It tried to block Blood with a kick, as it had no arm on that side with which to defend, and the wolf leapt and twisted, mostly avoiding the leg as she slashed the still not fully healed section of torso, tearing it back up and dealing massive damage. It wasn't for free, however, as the bit of the kick that made it through sent Blood tumbling, smashing a huge tree into kindling like it was a twig before sliding to a stop. She could feel a few bones cracked, but didn't even pause to take a deep breath, already launching herself through the air back towards the monster.

Beth was not happy seeing Blood take such a hit, and made her displeasure known with a counter of her own. The monster screamed and tried to counter the counter, but Beth was weary of this creature, this constantly screaming monster of gangly limbs and long claws. She pulled on her mana, finding it dry and not caring, channeling energy through herself before she struck. Blood was able to clearly see it all, seeing as Beth's eyes flashed into three different shades of silver and silvery golden flames started licking out of the joins and gaps in her armor.

With a mighty roar, she teleported two feet forward as she swung, a perfectly aimed and executed straight punch, delivered with a textbook twist, the force flowing all the way up from the soles of her feet through to her shoulder and in a straight line from there to her fist. Like a pneumatic piston powered by a nuclear blast, her fist shot forward as her arm extended, slamming into the monster's face at a speed that Blood couldn't even track, a noise very much like an artillery shell had hit a big block of glass at full speed ripping out from the epicenter.

The monster's head followed that sound, or whatever bits and pieces managed to survive Beth's strike, tiny little chunks, barely more than a few thousand molecules, exploding back and outward, Blood desperately diving out of the way to not get coated in even more gore. Nor did she want to get injured, judging by the amount of force Beth put into that final attack, mixing in Celestial Annihilation with some kind of silver energy that Blood didn't understand; even the back-blast could have been dangerous, let alone the bits and pieces that would make high caliber bullets look tame.