Duskbound

Chapter 15

Of course it's not over. This thing is a champion. Why would it be so easy that I could solo kill it in a few minutes?

Velik had no idea how agile a living wave of fire was, but he didn't have a lot of room to run away, so he tried a different strategy instead. He charged at it, spear leveled and leading the way. Then, with only a few feet between them, he planted the weapon hard in the ground and vaulted straight up. A twist of his midsection reoriented him to get his feet facing the ground again, and he saw what looked like phantom arms made of fire reaching out of the top of the wave.

They weren't fast enough to extend to his height in time, and he passed cleanly by them. As he flew overhead, he swiped his spear through one of the hands at the end, just to see if he could actually hurt Balzarith. The fiery hand parted from the arm and disappeared in a flash of light, which proved the weapon did... something. Whether or not that actually hurt the living inferno was still open to debate.

Velik hit the ground hard and rolled twice before coming to his feet. Some part of [Predator's Visage] warned him of an incoming attack, maybe the crackling sound of approaching flames or the smell of scorched dirt, though both those things were all around him. Whatever it was, he trusted the skill.

He threw himself forward in a spin, his feet leaving the ground so that his whole body could twist and his spear could slash through whatever was behind him. A huge, fiery hand, each finger over two feet long, had been just about to close around his head. The entire mass of flame surged behind it, no more than fifteen feet, and his spear did nothing to slow it down. It did shear off three of the massive fingers, all of which met the same fate as that first, smaller hand he'd cut.

Is this how I hurt this thing – just cut it away, one sliver at a time? That seems too simple for a champion elite.

Even if he was right, there was no telling how long it would take to carve enough fire off the main body. It was getting hotter in the field with each passing second, and he was pretty sure the twenty-foot-tall wall that kept him trapped was actually tightening around him. One way or another, Velik was going to cook if he didn't end the battle in the next few minutes.

The only good thing about his enemy's new form was that, while it was just as fast as the original one, it was considerably easier to cut through. He could whip his spear through a dozen of those reaching hands in a second, dispersing them all while he backpedaled away from the main body. The problem was that it didn't seem to slow Balzarith down at all. He'd stabbed that flame when it was still in its glass box and had seen its flickering countenance grimace in pain, but this fire now was something else.

That probably means there's a central core I need to find inside the inferno, maybe linked to those strands of red tissue. Wait... Where are those now? Are they hidden in the fire?

Someone with a low mental stat would have lacked the capability to discern that kind of detail in the inferno, but now that Velik had thought to look for them, it was easy enough to pick them out. They were deep in the fire, well past the reach of his spear, but now they were packed into a sphere that looked like nothing so much as a ball of raw muscle fiber.

More important was that the instant the core was ripped out of the fire, it all went out. Even the ring circling the field seemed to flicker and dim, perhaps because Balzarith was truly injured for the first time. Velik didn't have any answers, and he was too hurt to care. It was just a relief that he was no longer actively on fire.

He watched the core warily as he approached to reclaim his spear. He hadn't struck it at enough of an angle to pin it to the ground, nor was the spearhead long enough to reach through the other side. Right now, it looked like a red ball of muscle on the end of a stick, just lying in the dirt – gross, but ultimately harmless.

Velik knew better than to relax. He hadn't received a kill notification, which meant no matter how he might have hurt the monster, it wasn't dead. Living monsters were a threat, always. That was why he grabbed the spear by the very back end of the shaft and held it at arm's length while he studied his foe.

Liquid fire dribbled out from between the muscle fibers and splattered against the ground with a soft hiss, where it remained burning despite having nothing to consume. I bet some water mage would have eaten you alive. Being melee was a bad matchup, but this still feels too easy. It's supposed to take whole groups to kill a champion.

He whipped his spear straight down, sliding the mass off the end to smack hard into the dirt. It impacted with a heavy thud, then sat there, quivering gently as it wept more fire. Frowning, Velik stabbed down again, and again, each strike puncturing something unseen. Was it really just a trick of finding an almost invisible core amidst the living flames? I suppose getting a shot at it was difficult. An arrow would have burned up before it ever reached the core even if the archer could spot it.

Another minute of brutalizing the fleshy orb finally yielded the notification Velik was hoping for, along with a few unexpected ones.

[You have slain Balzarith the Living Inferno (champion elite, level 35.]

[You have taken a champion seed from its former owner, Chalin.]

[Champion seed's current reserves: 0/175.]

"Chalin," Velik gasped. The memory of his childhood friend's quirky smile flashed through his mind. Velik hadn't seen him since the day he'd become a [Duskbound]. "You're still alive?"