The two transford cores gave off an ominous humming sound, which beca louder and louder. The cores lit up from their positions in the sword and shield, clearly preparing for an attack.
Cerion and I exchanged a short glance at each other, before dashing away in opposite directions. I jumped through the rubble, using my healthy foot as support while my other foot slowly regrew, bone and all. Sotis, the value of a healing skill really couldnt be overstated. Dark form didnt just heal if I made a mistake, it also allowed to take large risks sowhat safely, for great benefit. Cerion didnt get wounded nearly as much as I did, but that was mostly because he didnt dare to take those risks, and rightfully so.
I discarded that line of thought to focus on the fight again. Now that we had entered phase two, all preconceived notions we had of the golem we were fighting would have to be evaluated. That ant a slow and steady approach, drawing out attacks and skills from the two floating giants. Luckily, Cerion and I had done a lot of damage to both cores in the first phase, they were barely holding themselves together as it was. On top of that, they didnt seem to be capable of healing their actual cores themselves, so we had all the ti in the world to slowly test this second phase. Well, preferably we would finish this within the next dozen or so minutes, but we had the ti if we needed it.
At that point, the bosses finished charging up their skills. Both cores lit up and shot out a beam of concentrated mana, one focussing on each of us. In a flash, the beam was upon us. I dashed out of the way handily, because I had been expecting sothing similar. Unfortunately, the attack wasnt just a one-off thing. It crashed into the ground, tearing anything in its way apart, before the beam of power started to move, following quite quickly. I ran around and took cover behind buildings, but each ti the skill core lost sight of , it refocussed its attack once I was forced to run out into the open again.
Looking over at Cerion, I found him experiencing much the sa process.
This back and forth wasnt without purpose, however. The cores behaviour told that it actually had to see by relying on sightlines. You could never know with things that didnt have any actual eyes, so monsters could sense their surroundings in different ways. I was sowhat thankful the golems vision was still the sa as it had been in the previous phase, so I decided to capitalise by apparating above the shields centrepiece, a stone archway that kind of looked like an eyelid that hung above the power core. As my apparition succeeded and I disappeared from my previous position, the swords beam attack that had been focussed on cut out.
I decided to follow through with my attack anyway and dove down sword first, slashing at the power core, intending to break another chunk off of it to weaken it further. Instead, the archway I was leaning on shifted, diving down and nearly throwing off of the shield-like golem as it shook violently. Before my attack connected a stone eyelid had closed, shielding the power core behind it. Even my overloaded sword just bounced off, and I didnt have ti to charge up an overloaded orb to blow the stone apart. At the very least my efforts had forced the core I was assaulting to relent in its attack as well, freeing Cerion from having to move evasively.
Frustrated that my attack had failed in achieving its main purpose, I called out to Cerion.
Lets destroy the sword first!
Cerion shouted back in the affirmative, before launching himself into the sky with a blast of water and throwing several small self-sustaining whirlpools through the air, right at the skill core resting on top of the giant swords poml.
Again, I felt the shield I was clinging to shift violently, as it swung itself through the air to block Cerions ranged attacks, creating a wild gust of wind and throwing off of itself as it did so.
As I fell to the ground, I noticed that my foot had mostly finished regrowing by now, as had my other wounds, so I used the mana I had passively been charging the air with to launch myself back into the air. In several blasts, I had arrived on the other side of the sword and created my own ranged attacks to launch at the unprotected core up high.
Right when my sword arcs were about to reach it, however, the shield shifted again, blocking them. This even though my improvised assault could have been easily dodged by the nimble sword itself. In fact, the poml had moved in such a way that my attack would have flown right past it anyway, so evidently, this shield was a little overprotective.
I also noticed that the power core had opened up its eyelid, revealing its position in the middle of said shield again, probably to keep up with us.
Again, a torrent of air appeared, as Cerion renewed his own attack, causing the protector to shift again.
Before a stalemate could appear, the sword decided to resu its attack. It lifted itself into the air as if it was about to be swung by an imaginary giant, before crashing down to the ground wildly, creating a massive torrent of wind along its path.
Cerion had to interrupt his attack and dodged just barely in ti, while I used my aura steps explosive nature to launch myself out of the way. Despite these evasive manoeuvres, we were still affected by the attack, as the aftershocks of the wind blast continued like a wave, creating cuts and tears on my newly healed foot and drawing blood from Cerion, despite his top-notch armour.
Like this, the battle continued for a few more minutes, forming a pseudo-stalemate. The skill core would create wind slashed while the shield would defend against any attack from our side. When we tried to anticipate its movent and aid for its core, its eyelid would close before we dealt any damage, while the swords attacks continued to deal marginal damage to us and threw us out of the air several tis.
No particularly new attacks or tactics were used from the bosses side, but they didnt need to, because they had us beat when it ca to teamwork. In the second phase, neither the raw power the golems displayed nor the variety of skills they used could be called impressive for a final boss. This made sense, as both cores were at the brink of breaking in half and therefore didnt display the quality they represented as well as they had before. Instead, they had started to work together, showing us that it was stronger than the sum of its parts. There was a lesson to be learned there, I just knew it.
Eventually, though, Cerion and I got the upper hand again. We both knew that only destructive attacks could leave a scratch on the stone weapons themselves, so we planned ahead.
I called out to Cerion to discuss it.
I still have that curse mark! How about you throw so fast attacks at the shield when my projectiles are already halfway there! Then it wont be able to react in ti! I shouted to my partner, who was surfing through the air a little distance away.
I could see him breathing heavily.
Alright! Im warning you, though, Im almost out of mana! he replied. I believed it, too. He looked like he had been put through the wringer.
If it ca down to it, I would have to retreat and carry Cerion away, though hopefully, that wouldnt be necessary.
A mont later, we both jumped into action.
I went to one side of the sword, that was charging up another swing, while Cerion went to the other side.
We were both out of the way as another wind arc ca flying at us, before recovering. I charged up so overloaded orbs, one in each hand, before throwing them at the sword. In actuality, they would automatically ho in on the curse mark, even if I didnt want them to. If I wanted to get free aim again, I would need to let go of the curse mark entirely, which made it a rather rigid skill, lacking in versatility. The thing was, the power core didnt know any of this. As far as it was concerned, two slow projectiles were flying to the charge it was trying to protect.
The shield swung around, ready to receive my attack, but had to go to the other side as Cerion launched a fast-moving water spear at the sword as well. It spun around in a semi-circle to block the spear, but was now facing a dilemma. Cerion was charging up another spear while my projectiles were still approaching on the other side.
Whatever intelligence the boss had dictated it to ti its block so that it would block my attacks first and then swing around to et Cerions.
Successfully, it swung around with a closed eyelid and blocked the two overloaded orbs, which only left so cracks in the stone. Then, it swung around again to block another spear. What the shield hadnt accounted for, however, was that I had charged right through the shockwave of my overloaded orbs explosion, charging up another volley all the while.
By the ti it noticed the danger, it would already be too late. I swung around again wildly, in a panic, only to be t by , grinning as I chucked another two black orbs at its wide-open eye.
As the blast threw back, blue shards of what looked like glass followed to the ground. As my landing made another crater, the giant stone shield slowly fell apart, losing its ability to float and turning into a pile of rubble before it even hit the ground.
With a maniacal laugh, I reappeared from the hole, pulling myself out by holding onto so nearby rocks.
I looked up at the sky, seeing only the remaining skill core fly around in sword form. Unfortunately, it didnt want to give up quite yet. With the death of its brother, the skill core turned a deep red, like the enraged butcher had, revealing that it wasnt helpless without its mana source.
Even from the ground, I could see it wouldnt live for much longer though. Small cracks and pieces started to fall off of the core by themselves, the strain of the cores new state too much to bear. A few minutes was all it would take to win this fight.
As I flew back into the air, I got cold sweat on my back as I saw the sword start to morph again. This ti, it had no set form, instead just turning into a twisting ss of stone remnants, randomly forming spikes, tendrils, and hands out of stone. In the end, only a writhing mass of stone was left. It sowhat looked like a star, with the skill core in the middle. It slowly started to hum again, shining brighter and brighter, eclipsing even its previous beam attack. Clearly, it was preparing to take us down with it.
As I prepared for this final fight, Cerion appeared out of nowhere, falling from the sky elegantly, right in front of the stone mass. With a downward slash, he passed the centre of the star, cutting the red core right in half as if he had been born for this mont.
The stone mass fell to the ground, causing the area to shake one final ti, as both cores laid destroyed.
Cerion joined to watch the spectacle.
As we witnessed the destroyed golems turn into rubble, I couldnt help but tease Cerion, even though the anticlimactic ending had saved a lot of trouble.
You certainly have a flair for the dramatics, huh?
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