The mont Myles saw it his heart dropped straight into despair. His mind stopped working properly. His thoughts scattered and crashed into each other as his eyes locked onto Nadine.
Her spear was gone—shattered into fragnts—and the monster's bone blade was already descending toward her.
"No—!"
The scream ca out of his chest but died in his throat.
At the last possible second, Nadine twisted and threw herself into a desperate roll.
The bone blade slashed through the space where her head had been an instant earlier, scraping along her shoulder and tearing cloth and flesh instead of splitting her in half. Nadine's blood was sprayed but she lived.
Then Victor was moving. He stepped in front of her without hesitation and planted his feet as his massive cleaver rose to et the monster's strike.
CLANG!
The impact rang like a bell of doom. Victor's arms jolted violently as the bone blade crashed against his greenish cleaver. The force nearly drove him to one knee.
Victor grunted, bared his teeth. This was different.
He felt the pressure, the weight, and the sheer overwhelming power behind the strike imdiately. It was heavier than before. Like the monster's strength had been compressed and sharpened into far more lethal power.
The purple-black mist thickened around him, writhing and screaming as it coiled tighter around his body. The aura crushed down on everyone nearby, making it hard to breathe and hard to think.
It wasn't just strength anymore. It was a presence and domination that they had never felt before.
Victor strained as he parried another blow, his boots scraping across cracked concrete.
"This thing… got stronger again."
No one else moved. Not because they didn't want to but because they couldn't.
The pressure froze them in place. Their instincts scread at them to move but their legs felt heavy. Their breath was choked.
They tightened their grip on their weapon, yet their arms refused to swing. They also felt their Ether fluctuate violently, light flickering and dimming.
Despair seeped into them all.
"How can this monster beco this strong?"
"Wasn't his power already insane?"
"How are we supposed to win…?"
The thoughts echoed in their minds, overlapping and crushing their focus. For a heartbeat they stood there in stunned silence, wide-eyed, losing their rhythm.
Then footsteps sounded behind them. Uneven, heavy, and dragging footsteps.
Myles walked out from behind the broken truck.
Blood stread down his face, soaking into his collar. His body swayed with every step, his legs trembling as if they might give out at any mont. He felt pain all over his body but he kept moving anyway.
"If I stop now… then everything really ends."
His vision blurred, but he forced his eyes open.
"DON'T STOP ATTACKING, YOU IDIOTS!" Myles shouted, his voice raw and cracked, filled with chaotic fury. "WE CAN'T STOP NOW!"
He staggered closer, nearly falling, but caught himself.
"If we hesitate we die for real!" he roared. "THIS IS IT! THIS IS ALL WE'VE GOT! DON'T GIVE UP!"
His chest heaved as he glared at them through blood and sweat.
"MOVE!"
The words hit hard. The companions snapped back to themselves. Shock gave way to clarity and fear turned into grit.
Their eyes shifted to Victor who was still standing, still holding the monster back despite the crushing pressure. The bone blade and greenish cleaver locked together, sparks and black mist erupting between them.
Then loud swishing and banging sounds scream through the air. From behind the companions countless Ether bullets and arrows moved through the air together, ripping toward the monster in a blinding storm.
Ethan had stepped fully into the open. Golden lines across his twin pistols ignited and flared violently as his Ether surged past normal limits.
The weapons scread in protest as he used his skill-Overclock Cataclysm, forcing the pistols into full overdrive. Heat shimred around the barrels as the pistols locked onto every hostile Ether signature that he targeted.
Ethan pulled the triggers and didn't stop.
The pistols roared nonstop, firing faster and faster. Every shot bent in the air, correcting its trajectory unnaturally, curving around his friends and debris to slam straight into the monster.
Bullets tore into bone, flesh, and mist, detonating Ether on impact. His damage was increased by 120%.
The monster jerked under the barrage. His aura rippled violently as explosions crawled across his torso and limbs and head.
Ethan's arms shook as his MP burned away at a terrifying rate. His veins stand out along his neck and wrists.
The pistols glowed white-hot, tangible gas Ether spilling from their seams, but he clenched his teeth and kept firing.
"DIE!" he shouted, emptying everything he had into the trigger.
At the sa mont, Samantha was also planning on releasing her skill. Her bow humd sharply as she shot the arrows in the air. One arrow then another, then many more wrapped in clear, focused Ether. She shot relentlessly, using all her concentration to hit her target and not hit her friends.
She would use the Resonant Afterimage skill. All the arrows she had shot before would erge as resonance that had reduced the amount of damage. But with those numbers it will still create terrifying damage.
They streaked through the battlefield in precise arcs, threading impossibly tight gaps between Victor and the others. Every arrow struck true, embedding into the monster's body, bones, joints, and muscles.
Then Samantha's eyes sharpened.
She stopped firing.
And then the air behind her distorted.
Every arrow she had fired reappeared at once, forming dozens of translucent, spectral afterimages suspended in the air.
They trembled, aligned perfectly with their original paths.
Samantha dropped her bowstring.
The spectral arrows launched simultaneously.
They scread forward as one, retracing their original trajectories at terrifying speed. The monster didn't have ti to react.
Impact after impact after impact happened.
The phantom arrows slamd into the sa wounds again and again, stacking damage in violent bursts. The bone started to shatter outward. Flesh tore open. The mist recoiled violently again as if screaming in pain.
The monster staggered hard, his regenerated body collapsing yet again under the compounded strikes. His aura flickered for the first ti since it thickened and he drew from the Source.
Victor felt the pressure ease—just a little.
Myles looked from his place. He knew that he needed to seize the opening when all of these barrages ended before the monster changed again.
—
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