Erend's glowing eyes narrowed. His laws flexing as sparks flickered across his Lightning Dragon body.
He wasn't the kind to falter in the face of overwhelming odds. Not now or ever, when the lives of those he cared about rested on his strength.
If he couldn't overcome this obstacle, then what good was his power?
Beside him, Eccar breathed heavily. His body still wrapped in layers of shifting earth and pulsing golden energy. He glanced at Erend and gave a nod. They didn't need to speak. They were of one mind.
"We don't stop now despite this bullshit," Erend said through grit teeth.
"We won't," Eccar answered. "Even if we have to tear him apart a hundred times."
Their wings snapped open in unison.
Then they surged forward at the same time. They came to Setekh-Ra with the same ferocity as before.
Erend unleashed forked lightning that danced between the clouds and the ground, arcing in spirals before slamming into their enemy.
The ground beneath them turned to smoking glass and blackened stone.
Eccar followed next with his own attack. His fists coated in dense spiked stone, his body glowing with the fury and Magic of the earth itself.
He slammed into Setekh-Ra with a terrifying crash, sending the Boss staggering back. The sand exploded outward in a shockwave.
Setekh-Ra retaliated with crushing blows of his own. His arms swinging like hammers, his strikes cutting through the water and wind with blinding speed toward Erend.
But Erend twisted through the air and dodging his attack with incredible agility. He then slashed across Setekh-Ra's back with claws that sparked like thunderstrikes.
The hit sent a cascade of crystal fragments from his armor.
Eccar rose a wall behind the Boss just in time then Setekh-Ra's body slammed into it, cracking the earthen spires. Before he could recover both Dragonborn were already back on him.
A flurry of lightning, claws, stone spears, and relentless will rained upon the being who have strength like a real god.
The battle shook the storm and the desert itself, and once again they brought Setekh-Ra down.
With a roar, Erend fired another lightning lance directly into his chest while Eccar leaping from a stone platform and crashed a boulder-sized hammer of compressed Magic onto the Boss's head.
Setekh-Ra's body crumpled under the twin impact.
Cracks spiderwebbed through his gleaming armor. His glowing eyes flickered and then dimmed. Finally he shattered again.
Light and dust exploded outward, scattering his form into the wind once more.
Erend and Eccar hovered in silence, panting. Their scales bore several wounds and their Magic was wearing thin. But for a brief moment, it felt like victory.
Until the sand shifted again.
"Here he goes again," Eccar growled.
Once again, the dust spiraled, light gathered, and Setekh-Ra reformed, flawless as before. Not a dent in his armor. His presence unchanged.
It was like time had turned back just for him.
Erend let out a sigh and a long steam coming out from his nose. He finally understood something. Or, at least, began to.
"He's not just regenerating," Erend said slowly, voice rumbling through the storm. "This isn't revival. It's something else."
Eccar narrowed his eyes. "Then what is it?"
Erend stared hard at Setekh-Ra, lightning flickering off his horns and wings.
"We keep hitting his body and breaking it but it's maybe not the real him. There's something else we're not seeing. Something we're supposed to hit."
"So what do we do?" Eccar asked, frustration clear in his growling tone.
Erend's eyes flared brighter. Then he spoke with their link, "We need to look deeper and past the armor and the body. I think There's a core somewhere inside all this. Maybe it's hidden and buried under layers of illusion or Magic. Or, the sands."
Setekh-Ra stood tall once again, not attacking this time just watching.
Almost like he was waiting to see if they'd figure it out.
"Let's change how we fight. We're not just trying to destroy a body anymore, we're trying to uncover the truth of what's keeping him alive."
Eccar smirked, Magic already pooling around his claws again. "Then let's dig until we find it."
Erend's eyes flickered brighter as he pulled back slightly, drawing deep into the currents of the storm to feel.
He honed his Magic senses, letting them pierce through the layers of dust, earth, and air. There had to be something beneath all this like a source, a core, or something buried beneath the sands keeping Setekh-Ra anchored to this world. His real body. Or at least, something like it.
"I'll hold him. You focus. Search with your Earth Magic," Erend sent the thought through their link. He decided.
Eccar nodded silently, already drawing his energy inward. He placed both clawed hands against the sand letting his connection to the earth expand outward like a ripple..
Setekh-Ra's head tilted slightly as if he heard their silent exchange. A faint smirk touched his metallic lips.
"Ah," he said. "You finally realized. Took you long enough."
Then he moved like a blur of gold.
Erend roared and intercepted him mid-charge. Their bodies collided with a deafening crash, lightning and crystal clashing.
Erend fought with every ounce of Magic he had, claws sparking, tail whipping, lightning screaming from his jaws.
Meanwhile, Eccar shut out the battle. He dug his senses deeper into the sand, forcing his Magic to explore the battlefield beneath the surface.
He conjured thin threads of stone and Magic that slithered through the dunes like tendrils, trying to detect even the faintest anomaly.
But there was nothing.
Minutes passed, and his frustration mounted. He glanced up just in time to see Erend slammed down by Setekh-Ra's fist, a shockwave rippling across the land.
Erend rose again, snarling and still burning bright. But Eccar's pulse quickened.
"Why can't I find it? It has to be here…"
He pressed his claws deeper into the sand, gritting his teeth as more of his Magic drained. The ground whispered back nothing but dust and ancient silence.
Then, a thought came.
A sudden, cold realization.
Eccar slowly lifted his gaze.
And there, above them all, high in the churning sky the vortex of swirling storm clouds still moving.
Within that eye of the storm something floated. A still and silent humanoid figure who glows faintly.
Eccar's jaw tightened, his growl low and sharp.
"Son of a bitch…" he whispered.