Shadowbane

"Rei, what abilities do you have right now?!" Alicia yelled as we were halfway to Belfos. The explosions drowned out the last half of what she said, but I heard enough to know what she was asking.

"There's only one that may be useful in combat!"

The sphere is the only combat related one I stole from Rodger's squad, and sadly it'll only be useful if Rai'ga tries running. I'll be shocked if that happens, but it's not a big deal. Assuming Petey and I can reach him, we'll be able to do quite a bit of damage from enhanced attacks alone.

{Rei, Belfos says to go here and wait for him before entering the underground chamber.}

A white dot appeared somewhere on the right side of the fort.

"Belfos relayed through the fairy some coordinates he wants us to go to!"

"After you then!" Benny yelled in response.

I turned hard to the right, running perpendicular to the fort.

"We're going away from the fort?!" I heard Alicia say as she followed behind me.

Two of Belfos' Lords began to ram into the left side of the fort, drowning out any other sound so I didn't bother trying to respond to her.

It's fine, she'll understand why I did this when we circle around toward the white dot. We really need to put some distance between us and the fort before we head for our destination. Running directly for it runs the risk of us getting hit by all of those heavy guns they're firing. I don't recognize those guns, but after seeing all of the fiery explosions they're causing, I know that I don't want to be in their firing range.

Just as I felt we were far enough away and began to turn left, the light from Mother disappeared, leaving the world in a near pitch-black darkness. I could see torches and crystal lights activating all around the fort, but out in the plains where we were, it was extremely dark, which was perfect for us. And I had already checked in my soul realm multiple times to make sure my halo didn't emit light. Every time it was merely red in the inner ring, so I didn't need to worry about it giving away my position.

"S-Sorry, Rei! I can barely see anything!" Alicia said after I felt something hard hit me in my back. So that was a rock she kicked into me? With my eyes I can still see the ground, but if her and Benny weren't enhanced they'd probably struggle to stay standing considering how fast we're running.

Soon after that large crystal searchlights began to scour the eastern and northern plains outside the fort. The southern and western sides were being attacked by Belfos, so it was only natural they'd keep an eye on the other two sides to make sure there weren't any more Lords of his attacking from other sides. This could be problematic for us though if these three are seen. All I know at this point is that there's no chance these lights are going to hit me. I just hope Petey is agile enough to pull this off. He has more than enough mana, but he's still bulky as all hell.

I zigzagged back and forth through the field as the searchlights passed by the areas I had just occupied. The whole time I was waiting for one of the lights to come to a halt and quickly turn back toward us after catching sight of my companions, but they were apparently doing a great job of keeping up with me.

We continued like that for until we reached the area Luna was guiding us toward. It was a pipe with a steel grate running under the fort. Luna, do you know where this leads? I know a little about architecture but this could be a sewer pipe for all I know.

{I don't, but Belfos said it'll lead to Rai'ga, so...}

Sewage or not, we gotta go then. But I'm not smelling anything like that so it's probably just a culvert of some sort.

I grab the grate and rip it off, causing a blue light to flare up and dissipate on the other side of the grate.

... Dwarven runes that were out of mana thankfully. Is this a temporary shelter? Or Rai'ga straight up doesn't care if someone tries to ambush him, which seems more likely given his ability to see everything around him for miles in every direction.

I dropped the grate onto the ground and walked down the tunnel, keeping my eyes peeled for any more runes as we advanced, but at this point I was almost positive there wouldn't be any.

{There! Don't go past there!}

A white line appeared around an entrance at the far end of the tunnel.

Is that were Belfos wants us to wait or was this your call?

{Belfos. He knows everything in these lands, including this fort. He already showed me the path to Rai'ga and where he slumbers. Also, I don't think you noticed since we had already left Telebron, but Rai'ga used that light bombardment ability of his on the Abyssal monster crawling out of that hole. He either killed it or knocked it down long enough that Mother was able to rescue far more people. Isn't that weird???}

Hmm... Everyone keeps telling me that Rai'ga is pro Eldritch above all else, so his actions might not be all that surprising. Killing Abyssal or Xerathian creatures is a natural thing for him to do. He sure as hell didn't hold back when it came to people from Xelba. Most of the units who tried to enter his domain were slaughtered.

But that also didn't stop him from using us to take of Viseux. Although, that's just conjecture on my part. I have no proof that he killed Shiva but it seems more than likely.

I walked next to the entrance and leaned against it, "Luna said to stop here, orders from Belfos."

Alicia, Benny, and Petey sat down opposite of me. We had rested a little earlier but it clearly hadn't been enough, they(excluding Petey of course) were both looking rather exhausted after all of the nonstop enhanced running we had been doing for hours.

The explosions continued to ring out, causing pebbles and dirt from the ceiling to fall all around us.

Alicia patted her hair, "This place isn't going to fall down on top of us is it?"

"I hope not. I'd rather not die like that again."

"Oh yeah, I remember you telling us about that. You were crushed in Xelba, right?" Alicia said.

"Yeah, but I still don't know how the city collapsed like that. Which is exactly what happened to Telebron by the way. So do either of you know how that happened?"

Alicia shook her head as Benny looked up and said, "I'm not surprised that you don't know how to destroy reinforced buildings or 'invulnerable' parts of the ground. Most people don't after all. Even the most despotic leaders are smart enough to only share it with soldiers they know won't babble about it to anyone. After all, they usually live in reinforced buildings, and they obviously don't want everyone to know how to breach their own homes."

"I take it you do know, Benny?"

"Nope."

"... Not quite how I expected that to end, but okay then."

Benny shrugged, "I only know that somebody knows how to destroy reinforced buildings and any supposedly indestructible parts of the underground. Lunaria being one of those somebodies. Aresa has been bugging her for years to tell her how it's done, but Lunaria won't budge, much to Aresa's dismay."

{Don't ask me. She'll just say no, and she's busy.}

I wasn't going to, but can you tell me what is happening back in Telebron?

{They evacuated everyone they could to the northwest side of the city, while everyone in the northern district fled to the boats. Now they're holding their ground, killing all of the Xerath that are swarming toward them. A lot of the boats are firing from off shore too so it's helping a lot, but the problem is the Abyssal creatures, or Gods? I don't know what they are.}

How many of them is there?

{Half a dozen, but their abilities are powerful. You've heard of one of them before. Aresa told you about the God that was blasting people with light powerful enough that it reduced people to ashes. It has a limited range, but she's still killing groups of soldiers left and right. And after she uses her ability she needs time to recharge, so the Xerath will pull her back and hide her.}

I relate to the others what Luna had just told me.

"Thoughts?"

"Well, it was pretty obvious but it's nice to have confirmation anyway. The Xerath are working with or for the Abyss. Except this has to be an isolated incident. The few Abyssal creatures I saw on Zhegu were definitely not friendly with the Xerath." Alicia said.

"Meaning one of those creatures is controlling them like Viktor can. So the way to victory is also the same. We'd need to kill whatever is controlling them, or kill the Xerathian's God."

"Which is impossible, since we know where neither of those are." Benny said.

Since the Abyss is involved, that means the main hive could be anywhere. And yeah, we have no way of knowing which Abyssal creature is controlling them, so finding either one of them would be extremely difficult.

I mean, I did have one idea for finding the hive, but I don't know if we'll be able to do it now. We would need to spread out as many fairies as Lunaria can spare and try to find the Xerath as they create a new hive. That in itself would require a lot of luck, but if it paid off I might be able to follow their footsteps back to the main hive. It's not a very good idea, but it's all I could come up. It'd be easier with Viktor's airships but it looks like the Abyss has a way of disabling them entirely, so I even if I did manage to steal one, it probably wouldn't help much in the end. The last option would involve me unlocking those wings and flying around myself, but who knows if that's even possible...

{He's starting, be ready!}

The ground began to shake as if another earthquake was taking place.

Starting what?!

{Destroying the ground in the courtyard. Normally the ground can lower in the courtyard, like a magical elevator, so anything massive can go down below, but Rai'ga has control of it.}

So Belfos has to destroy the ground to get to him basically.

How many Crotia are left?

{A lot, but his Lords and spawn are keeping them busy. So they shouldn't be a problem.}

I hope so, because they'll be able to fire those explosives down at us from above if he's opening up a massive hole in the damned ground.

The ground shook like that for another minute before it was obvious to all of us that he had broken through. The sound of tons of earth and stone landing on more stone far below it was so loud that all I could hear afterward was my ears ringing and Luna yelling at me through my soul to attack now.

I turned and was about to run through the opening when a large blast of dust and gravel bellowed out from the opening. Once it stopped we all ran through the opening and found ourselves in a large winding staircase that went down about a hundred meters.

Petey, don't drop all the way down this time. I'd prefer to not lose a huge chunk of mana right before we reach Rai'ga.

I activated my halo and jumped from one side of the staircase to the other, repeating this several times before I reached the bottom. One I arrived, the first thing I saw was Rai'ga far in the distance fighting off a swarm of Belfos' spawn, those mantis creatures I saw fighting the Xerath in that hive awhile back.

I then ran straight for Rai'ga while pulling the scythe off of my back. And in no time at all I could see the massive opening on the ceiling. Belfos, a gigantic bipedal insectoid was doing something with his left hand while firing acid at Rai'ga with his right hand(which was shaped like a sword). A barrier would appear around Rai'ga every time the acid came within fifty feet of him. But the mantis spawn were able to get through his barrier just fine, telling me it was entirely magic based. Which means we should be able to attack him directly, Petey. And that's exactly what we're going to do. Let's go!

Petey and I swung around the right side of the area, intending to come up behind Rai'ga as he looked up at Belfos, but it clearly wasn't going to work. His left head, the bear with hardened reptilian skin was looking right at us. That's fine then, let him focus us instead of Alicia and Benny. Rai'ga's center head is focused on Belfos while his right head is fighting off the mantis spawn. It's so bizarre and disgusting seeing a large mantis head with human teeth chomping down onto a bunch of other smaller mantis...

The area itself was basically empty outside of a few dozen pillars going from the ground to the ceiling, so it was easy to see Rai'ga while also giving us a few areas we could hide in if need be, not that I expected them to be all that useful against him.

Suddenly the bear head looked away from us and focused on Alicia. She was hiding behind one of the pillars while sticking her right hand out at Rai'ga. Whatever she was channeling had caught his interest, so he chose to attack Petey and I with his tail instead. It grew to four times its original length in less than a second and whipped back and forth, tearing through the pillars and stone flooring as if it was paper.

I dodged back and forth while making my way toward him, but even I was panicking a little considering how strong the attacks were, and this was only his damned tail. I wasn't looking forward to seeing what the rest of him could do.

I felt a sudden spike in mana loss from Petey's side, so I glanced back real quick to check on him and saw that his left arm had been taken off completely. Re-attach that, don't leave it!

Petey quickly dropped down and picked his arm up before placing it against his torso. I could see the blackened blood turning to muscle while reconnecting to his arm. As he was doing this I attempted to hit Rai'ga's tail with the scythe, but it was fast, really fast, so it took me a bit to even hit it once, and when I did I heard a roar of pain from the bear head.

It still didn't look back at me, it was keeping its gaze locked onto Alicia. And Rai'ga clearly had no intentions on allowing her to finish channeling her spell, as three laser beams appeared out of the panthers eyes. He was looking up at Belfos so that's the direction they went at first, but they quickly snaked through the air and around several pillars until they reached Alicia. But they didn't hit her, instead, they bounced off of her barrier and flew off in random directions. The bear head's eyes began to glow as it looked at her.

{He's scanning her to figure out how she did that.} Luna said as Petey and I fought off the tail that was growing in both speed and power. Also, the bear must have done something to it, because it was now green and scaly like his face, which had made it very difficult to cut through. The scythe was struggling to pierce it and kept bouncing off of it, while Petey was still managing to take little pieces off of it when he did land a blow, which was rare.

Rai'ga suddenly leaped backward and soared over both Petey and I. The reason was made obvious as Belfos stabbed the area he had occupied a moment before. With his initial attack missing, Belfos pulled his sword-hand out of the ground and knelt down in preparation to leap at Rai'ga, but all at the same time dozens of lightning tendrils wrapped around Belfos from every area of the underground before connecting to the stone flooring around him. He managed to prevent his sword-arm from being locked up, but the rest of his body was electrified and unable to move far from where he was.

{Fool.} Rai'ga's voice bellowed throughout the cavern as he began to slowly walk in a circle around him. {This was the area they originally locked you up in, was it not? How could you not foresee this outcome?}

After a quick glance around the cavern, I noticed that all of the pillars still standing were shimmering, and that's exactly where the electricity was coming from.

Petey, destroy the pillars!

I turned and ran toward Rai'ga as Petey began to chop down one pillar after another. I could tell from the mana he was using that these were no ordinary pillars, and definitely not something that people were normally able to destroy. *It must be because of his artifact weapon.*

The mantis head looked at me and bellowed out a sonic boom of some sort. It was too fast to dodge, but after it hit me all I felt was a massive force pushing against me, causing me to roll backwards for a bit before jumping back to my feet and restarting my pursuit.

{Hmm, so sonic attacks are useless against you? No matter. There are many ways of dealing with flies such as you.}

The barrier around Rai'ga re-appeared for only a split second and turned red before a large wave of fire exploded outward from it. I dove behind a pillar and almost immediately I saw a massive clawed paw ripping through the pillar, coming straight for me. For my part I was still midair, so I punched the ground hard and whipped myself back the way I came.

While I avoided Rai'ga's claws, his tail was furiously whipping at me again as another set of lasers appeared out of the panther's eyes. And to make matters worse, the mantis head was opening its mouth up, and behind its teeth I saw an untold number of white spikes launch out at me.

I kicked the ground hard toward the left; barely dodging the tail, but the spikes were already about to pierce me, and they were spread out in a way that dodging them would've been next to impossible in the time I had left before they hit me. Cutting them down with the scythe was an option, but the icy beams were twisting and turning through the air above me, obviously waiting for the spikes to reach me before they descended.

With no time left I was preparing to attack the spears while praying I'd be able to dodge the beams, but that's when Luna projected a flat barrier in front of me that was just barely big enough to protect me. Deciding to put my faith into her, I knelt low and pulled the scythe back as the sound emitting from the beams drew dangerously close to me.

As the spikes hit the barrier I looked up and saw the three beams split off in different directions, surrounding me in the form of a triangle before heading straight for me. I cut down the beams in the front and to my back-right side, but I knew I wasn't going to make it in time for the one to my back-left, so I put a large amount of power into my feet and leaped to the northwest.

I glanced over my right shoulder so I could keep Rai'ga in my eyesight while also tracking the beam, and the beam was indeed following after me, but the real problem was the tendrils growing out of Rai'ga's back. Each one took on a different element, and they were all pointing directly at me.

As I cut down the last beam I could see the ends of the tendrils lighting up. Electricity, fire, water, ice, and a purple element I couldn't pinpoint at a glance. Moments later they all fired in my direction, with only one of them directly at me. The others were all around me and zigzagging through the ground in every direction, cutting off all forms of retreat.

Jumping away would normally be the only way out of this, but Rai'ga had another set of icy beams darting back and forth around the ceiling, and his tail was also waiting in anticipation up there.

That was when a large sonic blast hit Rai'ga right in the panther face. It was unimpeded by his barrier so Rai'ga went sliding backwards as blood began to trickle out of his seven eyes. And before he had stopped sliding, another blast hit him in his left side, but this time it was a large sphere made of light that his his barrier. He was already putting all of his weight forward trying to stop himself from moving back, so the impact to his left side sent him toppling over.

He quickly flipped back onto his feet, but the anger on the bear and mantis' face couldn't possibly be more pronounced.

I already knew who they came from but just in case I glanced behind me, and indeed the first blast was from Belfos, while the light attack was from Alicia, who was now as far away as possible. And Belfos now had control of his left hand again thanks to all of the pillars Petey was cutting down. He quickly raised it up and did something with it again while pointing at Rai'ga, and that's when I finally realized what he was doing earlier with his left hand. Oh, so that's why his mantis spawn stopped moving. He controls them with his left hand when none of his Lords are around.

The mantis spawn that were lying lifelessly on the stone floor all stood up and fluttered through the air. They spread out around the underground and began to separately fly toward Rai'ga.

Rai'ga ignored it, clearly more interested in Petey and Alicia at this point. Petey was on the right side of the cavern, the complete opposite of where Alicia currently was, so he had his tendrils fire at Petey while he unloaded several waves of beams and spears at Alicia. These spears were different though, as the bear head had cast something before they left the mantis' mouth. They looked scaly just like him, and they easily ripped through the pillars one after another on their way to Alicia.

As he attacked both of them, he also leaped at me again, with far more speed than his massive frame should have ever been moving, once again showing the amount of overwhelming power he had inside of him. However, he stopped halfway to me when he saw all of the attacks bounce off of Alicia again, but also the pillar she was hiding behind as well.

While it wasn't evident on the mantis or panther's face, the bear however was clearly confused. And I was right there with him. Those were by no means weak attacks. Hell, the Tengu back in Kellog would've struggled to survive that attack, and here Alicia was so easily deflecting everything he sent at her. The pillar deflected it too though, which is even more bizarre... There's no way she can make everything reflective, that'd be far too overpowered. So whatever the catch is, we need to kill him before he figures it out.

That last attack must've been the final straw for him, because Rai'ga dug into the ground and leaped directly at Alicia, barreling through one pillar after another. Despite the hundreds of yards between them, he reached her in about two seconds, bringing down both of his front paws down onto her. The pillar she was behind crumbled just as easily as the others this time, but Rai'ga's next actions told me that he must have missed her, because he was looking around everywhere for her with his three heads.

That's when I felt a pulse from Rai'ga wash over the room, and he immediately looked down into the earth in my direction. His three heads were tracking something I couldn't see that was moving fast through the earth, and a few seconds later I heard something emerge next to Petey far behind me. Looking back there I saw Alicia and Benny appear out of the floor before they ran behind another pillar.

{Annoying little RATS!! I found your pointless struggle against me rather entertaining at first, but I am quickly growing tired of your antics. It's time to end this!}

Rai'ga leaped directly at me, using the same exact attack he had just used against Alicia. Unlike her, I couldn't just burrow into the ground, so I dodged backward and immediately his tail came down at me. I evaded to the left as his right paw came down at me again.

I dodged back and forth like that over and over while attempting to cut him down with the scythe, but the bear's armored buff was making it impossible for me to penetrate him. Shit, Petey's sword is all around better for this battle, but I can still feel the scythe ripping away at his soul; stealing who knows how much mana every time it connects. It's just a matter of whether we're even putting a dent into his mana pool.

While this was going on Rai'ga was blasting both Belfos and Alicia with an unending barrage of spells. What he was doing before barely looked like a warm-up compared to what he was throwing out at them now. Beams from the panther's eyes and his tendrils, sonic waves, spears from the mantis' mouth. The spears and several of the tendrils were aimed at Alicia while the rest was aimed at Belfos who was a sitting duck. I couldn't see what was happening with Alicia, but I could tell Belfos was struggling to defend against the barrage of attacks.

Dozens of Belfos's spawn had also landed on all three of Rai'ga's heads and were chopping away at them, but the bear's armor was sadly proving impossible for them to get through.

That's when another sphere of light arced through the air toward Rai'ga. In response his tendrils all turned toward the sphere and blasted it before it reached him, but then two other spheres arced through the cavern toward him as well. His tendrils immediately split up, aiming at both of the spheres.

Before he could hit them another sonic blast from Belfos rammed into him. This time it hit the bear's head, and this one was far stronger than the previous attack. Belfos must have held the last one back because he wasn't sure if it would do much against his barrier, but after it hit him directly, he went all out with this one.

The bear head whipped toward the panther head, smashing right into it, which then dominoed into the panther head slamming into the mantis head. This had clearly disoriented Rai'ga, as his tendrils completely missed Alicia's attacks, which turned out to be only one attack. One of the spheres disappeared, clearly an illusion, while the other one arced in a way that allowed it to hit Rai'ga from the same side Belfos had hit him. Once it connected with his barrier he slammed into the ground again and rolled over.

And I had also noticed that the second Belfos hit the bear with his sonic attack, the armor spell he cast over Rai'ga's entire body had disappeared, so the moment he rolled over both I and Belfos' spawn jumped onto his stomach and began to cut him up as fast as we could.

I normally couldn't hear the scythe at all, as my veil blocked all connections from it, but in this moment the sheer fervor it emitted as it ripped into Rai'ga's soul could be felt even by me.

Rai'ga howled in pain and rolled over, keeping his stomach low to the ground in an attempt to crush us, but I and most of the spawn climbed up his side and onto his back, cutting deep into him as we moved. It only lasted a few seconds before the bear re-applied the armor, but it felt like minutes considering how many open wounds we left on him.

The mantis head turned around and attempted to eat me. Between that and his armor being re-applied, I saw no reason to stick around and immediately jumped off of him. Belfos spawn stayed though and continued to chop away at him. Even if they weren't doing much damage, they were still dropping his mana down with each attack, so I could understand why they stayed.

At this point Petey had destroyed most of the pillars(and the ones that Rai'ga so helpfully destroyed as well). There were maybe ten percent still standing, and oddly enough the ceiling hadn't collapsed yet, but I figured that was just more Eldritch shenanigans.

Apparently that was enough for Belfos though. The last remaining electrical binding on his right foot ripped into him as he tore his foot out, but he clearly had no intentions on waiting for Petey to destroy the rest of the pillars. Purple blood poured out of his leg as the last remaining pillars crumbled thanks to him pulling so hard on his bindings.

Petey, come back quickly!

{Enough...}

That one simple word Rai'ga muttered was barely a whisper, and yet so very loud. It was filled with pure malice, and was telepathically ejected from him with enough force that the whole cavern shook.

Belfos stopped in his tracks and created a large directed barrier in front of himself.

{Rei, run behind him, now!! Petey too!}

As Luna said that I saw Rai'ga's barrier flare up like it had done earlier, but this time the fire around it was much more powerful. I blitzed toward Belfos and dove behind him, sliding right into Petey who was already on one knee behind Belfos's legs. We watched as one wave of fire after another expanded outward from Rai'ga's barrier. And not only that, but the spears, icy beams, and all of the tendrils attacks were all directed at Belfos. Needless to say, it didn't take long for cracks to begin to form along his barrier.

Alicia and Benny were somehow fine as the blazing aura washed over them time and again, and while that was happening Alicia attempted to blast Rai'ga with several more supercharged spheres of light, but the waves of fire kept detonating them before they could reach him.

The temperature in the area was far hotter than anything I had experienced before, meaning that even if Alicia and Benny were able to avoid direct damage from the blazing walls of fire coming their way, the heat itself was going to kill them soon. Obviously most warriors are prepared with basic self-temperature spells to counter elemental attacks, but there's only so much they could do. This was too hot, and it was only getting hotter.

And as if this wasn't all bad enough, something exploded on Petey and nearly knocked me away from Belfos' protection. Looking back I saw several Crotia firing those large ass guns down at us. Behind them their comrades were fighting off several of Belfos' spawn, so they were going to stop them soon enough, but until then we were sitting ducks.

Luna, I can handle a lot of the damage from Rai'ga's fire waves right now if we go on the offensive, so can you tell how much mana he has left? Petey and I can run over there and slice into him with heavily powered slashes if he's nearly tapped out.

{I-I don't know, I'm sorry, Rei! But don't worry, you'll have another chance soon. Look, Alicia is gone!}

Gone?

I looked over at Alicia as another explosion erupted about ten yards behind me. She was definitely gone, and I could see the panther head's eyes all tracking something underground. He knows she's coming though, what's the point?

When the panther's eyes looked directly down a sphere of light that was three times bigger than the others she had used slammed right into Rai'ga's barrier from below, launching him up into the air.

Immediately Petey and I attempted to run around Belfos toward Rai'ga, but Belfos clearly had the same idea we did. He jumped high into the air directly at Rai'ga as his whole body shined a bright blue.

Both the panther and bear's eyes went wide as he realized what was about to happen. Rai'ga quickly re-applied the bear's armor of his whole body while focusing all of his spells back onto Belfos. It took a few seconds to begin casting everything again, and in that time Belfos halved the distance to him, which left him wide open through the remaining two seconds.

Two seconds of Rai'ga's full force directed at you is devastating to say the least. Parts of Belfos literally melted from the fire tendril, while the bone spears penetrated him all over, and the remaining tendrils did an ungodly amount of damage to him as well. But Belfos did not stop, and Rai'ga realized in that moment that no amount of damage was going to stop him, so he changed tactics. His tendrils stopped firing and a shimmer of aura expanded around him, but he was too late. Belfos brought down his sword arm onto the bear's head, piercing all the way through it. And the second he did that, he used his flying ability to force himself toward the ground, bringing Rai'ga with him.

Rai'ga slammed into the ground with Belfos' sword-arm sticking through both the bear's head and the ground. Earthly tendrils came out of the sword-arm and wrapped around the bears head before digging into the ground, preventing Rai'ga from moving. He tried to pull away as Belfos used his left hand to punch both of the remaining two heads over and over. One of the hits was directly on top of the mantis' head, driving it straight into the ground. I could see its teeth chip a little from the impact.

Despite the fact that Petey and I jumped through the air toward Rai'ga at the same time Belfos did, we were only just now landing on his back. That's how quickly everything beforehand had transpired.

Wasting no time, Petey and I began to attack Rai'ga, with me trying to chop his tail off as Petey unleashed one full-power swing after another at the mantis' neck. The mantis head obviously tried to bite into Petey in retaliation, but tendrils of light were wrapping around him from directly underneath him. They were barely keeping it in check at first, but the more tendrils that appeared, the more the mantis head struggled to move.

While the tail itself was attacking me as I chopped into it at the base, the tendrils turned away from me and did something none of us expected, they began to fire into the bear's neck. Rai'ga had tried to warp before Belfos reached him earlier, and he only just barely missed his window to do so, and now that we were on top of him, he was unable to warp away, since any warping ability I've ever heard of required the consent of anyone touching you. Which meant his only way of escaping this was to remove the bear's head that was tying him down, but at the rate Alicia was trapping the mantis' head, he was going to need to cut that one off as well.

Petey was about one tenth through the mantis neck when he swapped over to the panther. We both silently decided that it was best to see if Alicia could keep the mantis' head locked down. And even if she couldn't, he had already done a tremendous amount of damage to it. The wound sealed up fast, but there was still a large pool of blood below the mantis head, proving that the amount of damage it took was by no means small. The blood pool below the bear's head was beginning to merge with the one below the mantis' head, making the already very gruesome scene even more disturbing.

A sickening plop sounded out as the bear's head detached from Rai'ga's body. Rai'ga immediately tried to pull himself up and annoyingly he was succeeding. I suppose it shouldn't have come as a surprise that a God of his level was able to overpower Alicia's magic tendrils. But he only raised his remaining heads and body about halfway to a standing position when Belfos reached out with his left hand and clamped down onto the panther's head.

{WOULD YOU JUST DIE ALREADY YOU WORTHLESS INSECT?!}

One set of beams after another launched out of the panther's eyes, burning right through Belfos' hand and then into his left shoulder. I finally cut off Rai'ga's tail just as I heard Belfos' arm fall off. Unfortunately for Rai'ga, that wasn't the victory he was hoping for. The hand remained firmly on the panther's head, and now that it was connected to the ground it wrapped another set of earthly tendrils around the head and all the way down the arm into the ground.

{NO, NO! YOU WILL NOT TRAP ME AGAIN!!}

The mantis' head tried to move to the left and bite the hand, but while Alicia couldn't hold down his entire body, she could prevent the mantis' head from moving around. But sadly for us, he didn't need to bite into it to destroy it. Alicia's tendrils only tied down the top and sides of its head toward the ground, not its jaw, and it was just barely able to turn toward Belfos hand and fire out dozens of spears at it.

Having completed their previous mission, the elemental tendrils now attempted to destroy Belfos' arm next, but since I was already done cutting off Rai'ga's tail, I was now chopping down the tendrils one at a time, which was going much faster. The scythe loves mana after all, and these tendrils were entirely composed of mana. I had already cut down the fire, water, and purple one, and was now moving onto the electrified tendril.

The spears must have done the job, because I could feel Rai'ga standing up in a hurry, pulling Alicia straight out of the ground. The mantis' head immediately chomped down onto her, and while it did get Benny and her between its teeth, it was struggling to crush them.

{Rei, help them! Benny can only protect them like that for a little bit longer!}

Shit, there's only two tendrils left! But I can't stop Petey from chopping into the panther's neck. None of this will end if we don't destroy all three of these heads. Or at least I hope that's enough to bring him down.

I turned and ran alongside Rai'ga's back toward his heads when suddenly there was flames everywhere. I ignored it and pushed on, but the heat was tremendous and I could feel Petey's bones cracking as both of our mana levels plummeted drastically.

{I didn't want to do this, but so be it. I'll take the damage just so I can reduce you annoying fleas to ashes. STAY ON MY BODY ALL YOU WANT, LET'S SEE HOW LONG YOU LAST!}

The two remaining tendrils fired at Petey without a care that they were also hitting Rai'ga's barrier when they missed. He clearly didn't care about self-inflicted damage at this point. He only wanted to end the battle.

Petey was unable to get a good swing in now that the two tendrils were swerving back and forth trying to hit him, and when they did connect I felt a large chunk of mana dissipate. We had plenty of mana at this point after all of the souls the past couple of weeks, but it still wasn't a good idea to be taking this much damage in such a short amount of time. What were the other options though? We couldn't let him distance himself from us again, that would greatly increase the chances of him killing us. And Belfos hadn't moved an inch in the past half a minute, so he was either unconscious or dead. But either way, he couldn't help us anymore.

I reached the mantis' head and jumped down while grabbing one of the tendrils of light next to its jaw. Its creepy eyes looked over at me as I began to slash at the tendons connecting to its jaw. A weird sound emitted from the mantis' mouth as it whipped its head back and forth, trying to fling me off while hoping to avoid more strikes to its tendons.

The panther was releasing one set of beams after another as well, and they were all heading straight for me of course. Between the beams I was cutting down, the weird rollercoaster the mantis head was sending me on, the screams of my two allies inside its mouth, and the massive chunks of mana dropping out of Petey as he was engulfed in flames while the tendrils blasted him from behind; I was in a very strange mental state.

Everything was moving so slow around me, and my mind was completely calm. Instead of being horrified or panicked, I was instead awestruck by how bizarre the whole situation was. I only wanted to live in peace with my friends in Gaia, and somehow that line of thought lead me to here, battling the most powerful being I had ever come up against to date; all so I could save two of my friends, and one of them was trapped in a crystal as if she were a maiden from one of the video games I used to watch my uncle play.

I don't know how long it took, since everything had been moving in slow motion for me, but I eventually cut deep into the left tendon on the mantis' jaw. That side of its mouth immediately went slack and both of my allies leaped out of his mouth before quickly disappearing underground again. And Alicia must have done something before she jumped out of its mouth, because the mantis' head was now hanging lifelessly while bleeding heavily out of its mouth.

I could hear Rai'ga screaming in anger again, but it was all white noise to me at this point. I climbed up and firmly planted my feet next to Petey by turning blood on the bottom of my feet into sharp points that dug deep beneath his skin. Petey copied me before raising his sword high next to the scythe I was holding over my head. Rai'ga yelled again, this time saying something in a panic, but I ignored him; the fire all around us; and the two tendrils blasting into both of our backs.

All I did from there on out, was two simple motions. Raise the scythe high and bring it down onto his neck as hard as I could. Luna was projecting barriers when she could, and we must have been dangerously low on mana because I could hear her yelling in a panic as well, but again, I ignored it all. Raise the scythe high, bring it down. Over and over.

At some point I vaguely realized that Petey was no longer chopping at the panther's neck with me. A quick glance to my left showed me that he couldn't, as his entire body from the knees up was gone. Goodbye Petey, and thank you buddy.

The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground, watching the panther head hanging off of Rai'ga's body by a few strings of meat. He said something again, but I couldn't hear anything, as the whole world was silent. It was also then that I realized why Rai'ga wasn't moving during the last part of that battle. Belfos' last act was to tightly wrap all of Rai'ga's feet to deep underground. I was surprised that the fire didn't burn them off, but that just showed how much power Belfos put into that final act.

And a few moments later the last remaining muscle keeping the panther head attached, tore off completely. I closed my eyes and smiled as the head silently toward the ground.

Luna, I don't care how you do it. Get me over to that body. There's a soul I need to eat, and it's long overdue.