Farrah strode forward, three flaming orbs manifesting and floating over her head. They each shot fiery beams at the monster, which ceased scraping at the magma with its hands and rushed at her instead. Farrah stomped her foot as she moved and obsidian shards erupted from the ground in a curtain, adding to the fragments already embedded in the monster’s flesh.
The creature quickly moved aside, dodging much of the cloud of shards, only to see another ability coming for it. Something underground was rapidly digging its way forward. The monster moved again, but the burrowing thing changed tack to keep pursuing. Finally, the monster grabbed a huge rock like it weighed no more than dollhouse and hammered it down, trying to kill whatever was hidden in the ground.
After the rock slammed into the ground, it was broken apart. A two-metre obsidian column smashed through it as it rose from the ground in front of the monster. The column then shattered, burying yet more shards in the monster as Farrah chanted a follow-up spell.
“Children of the volcano, be reborn in fire.”
All the shards of obsidian, almost a patina coating the front of the monster, suddenly turned into molten magma. The small globules of molten rock merged together, burning all the hotter with each addition.
The entire front side of the monster was turned to molten slag, catching fire and drizzling onto the ground like syrup to reveal the creature’s hideous innards. Even so, the monster did not die. Monsters might have lacked an essence user’s arsenal of powers, but their resilience put all but the most indestructible essence users to shame. At silver rank, any monster took a lot of killing.
Farrah didn’t let up, approaching now with her sword, swinging it in a wide, horizontal sweep. The segments of blade whipped away, strung along a cord of glowing magma. It wrapped around the monster twice, the serrated edge digging into flesh. It was especially vulnerable in its ruined front. The sword retracted, cutting into the monster like a saw as it shrank back to the hilt.
Even that didn’t kill the monster, but the creature was no longer a threat, lying almost helpless on the ground.
“Time to try another new trick,” Farrah said to herself.
The sword in her hands transformed. Instead of a sword, it became an unwieldy saw blade on a heavy handle, the glowing hot edge spinning rapidly. Though too awkward for a fight, it was just the thing for dismembering a monster already all but done.
Physically tougher and stronger than the other monsters, the yowies were still less powerful, lacking the speed or special abilities to leverage that might. At silver rank, strong and tough wasn’t enough anymore, which was perfectly highlighted by an enemy like Jason.
Literally riding rings around them on his bike, he quickly loaded them up with afflictions before leaving them to percolate, heading after the remaining toads. He started with the one he had already gone to work on. Loaded with afflictions that built up while Jason handled the yowies, the toad’s flesh was already covered in ugly splotches of dead flesh. Jason’s Punition spell delivered an immediate burst of necrosis for each affliction, which was enough to finish the toad off.
Farrah was coming away from having killed the most dangerous monster and was eyeing the two toads closest together.
Leaving them to her, Jason took the last one. Once again, he rode around the monster on his bike, shadow arm flicking out to land a pair of knife wounds. He had the arm emerge from his cloak, using his own hands to keep control of the bike as he rode it wildly over the uneven ground. This was more familiar to him than his fight against the bikies, having learned to ride dirt bikes on Uncle Robbo’s farm as a boy.
The toads had thick skin, but as Cotsworth had told them, their insides were much more vulnerable. Jason’s afflictions ravaged the toad’s insides, and he didn’t wait long before switching to the second phase. After hitting it with his Punition spell, he used his Feast of Absolution to drain the noxious afflictions. For each instance of curse, unholy affliction, poison, and disease removed, three holy afflictions were left in its place.
Penance inflicted inescapable transcendent damage that diminished over time. Legacy of Sin made the target count as more damaged than they were for execute attacks, which only added to the fact that by the time Jason laid it on, the target was already plenty damaged.
Against lower-rank monsters, Jason had needed to work to use his finisher. Most monsters were done by the time he was ready to pull it out. Finally faced with silver-rank enemies, the power of the finisher was truly something he could use to close out a fight.
“Mine is the judgement, and the judgement is death.”
A column of transcendent light crashed down on the toad, descending like the judgement of the heavens.
Ability: [Verdict] (Doom)
Spell (execute).
Cost: Moderate mana.
Cooldown: 30 seconds.
Current rank: Bronze 3 (99%)
Effect (iron): Deals a small amount of transcendent damage. As an execute effect, damage scales exponentially with the enemy’s level of injury.
Effect (bronze): Damage scaling is increased by instances of [Penance] on the target.
As of bronze rank, the triple-stack scaling of damage and the two afflictions made Jason’s finisher a force of absolute annihilation, wiping the toad from existence.
You have defeated [Gigantoad].
[Gigantoad] has been wholly annihilated. It has been looted automatically.
8 gobbets of [Silver Toad Jelly] have been added to your inventory.
[Healing Unguent (Silver)] has been added to your inventory.
[Monster Core (Silver)] has been added to your inventory.
10 [Silver Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
100 [Bronze Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
1000 [Iron Spirit Coins] have been added to your inventory.
Since his Punition spell had a cooldown, it would take him a moment to go through each of the yowies he had left behind. After felling the toad, he pointed a hand in their direction.
“Suffer the cost of your transgressions.”
One of the yowies stumbled as clumps of hair started falling out of stricken flesh.
Farrah didn’t bother messing around with the last two toads but decided to go all out. She started by drawing a fire diagram in the air and then activating a power. Amber light shone from her body, before turning silver as her aura went from bronze rank to silver. Then she cast a spell.
“Burning heart of the world, show your might.”
The first toad had leapt at her while she was drawing the diagram, but she didn’t dodge, raising an arm in its direction. A metre-wide stream of lava erupted at the toad, coring its weak insides like an apple after punching through its tough skin. Pus and jelly rained down on her as she pointed her hand at the second toad. Another burst of lava made short work of it.
Afterwards, she dismissed her armour. Lava Cannon was a mana-devouring spell at bronze rank, but artificially raising it to silver with her Limit Break power made her mana drop off like a calving glacier. She stood bent over in a recovery position, hands on knees as Jason arrived on his bike. Seeing her covered in toad goo, he cast his cleansing spell.