Lightning crackled in Desmond's palms, weaving its scalding arcs into a purple javelin that thrummed with power. He raised it overhead, his eyes narrowed on the roots shooting at Adam's exposed flank to feast on his vitality like toxic leeches smelling fresh blood. One shot, three roots. He had to succeed.
"I'm not abandoning you since you didn't!" With a roar, he hurled the javelin with all his mana-enhanced strength. However, he was a mage. Physical strength was only a supportive tool.
With a wave of his palm, three lightning circles formed in the projectile's path. They sparkled, not in purple, but in humming blue, and when the javelin drilled through the first circle, the humming turned into a roar quickly overwhelmed by a thunderclap.
Blue lightning arcs spread like cracks in the very air as the javelin's speed doubled three times.
Adam dashed toward the beast's jaw when it boomed past his ear. In a sizzling cacophony, the javelin impaled the three roots just as they overlapped. The searing energies blasted them to charred shards that flew in front of his dancing hair as he smirked.
'Electromagnetic blasts.' The thought flashed through his mind in a split second as he reassessed Desmond's skills.
"Again!" he screamed as he halted right in front of the beast.
Its countless sickly yellow eyes, dangling at the end of tentacles, swayed hungrily at him. Its breath was so fetid when it roared that he subconsciously pinched his scrunched nose. But the true disgust came with the spite. His hair stood on end an instant before the tar-like saliva showered his hair and robe, soaking him in hundreds of venoms and plagues that tasted like rusted metal mixed with decayed flesh. The uniform's enchantments let out a desperate pulse before the liquid punctured sizzling holes through its fabric.
Desmond's breath caught in his throat, his spell shattering in powerless lightning arcs. "Are you alright?!" His voice came out choked with despairing horror.
During botanical lessons, he had learned about the Oozebloom Abomination's potent infections. A single whiff of its breath could hurl a powerful archmage straight on his deathbed, shivering with intense fever for at least a week—and that was if a healer took him in charge at the first symptoms. But Adam? Adam was soaked in its saliva... It was stupid to fight that thing. He had warned him!
However, his eyes only widened when he saw Adam throw his ragged robe. His hair still shone a bright sky-blue under the purplish saliva, and no steam came from his exposed torso.
"It ruined my uniform—again," Adam snarled, his eyes narrowed into vindictive slits as he wiped the saliva off his arms. "I'll sew a new one out of your fibers, you reeking, rotten log."
The beast squinted as if confused by the human's survival. Then the insult struck. With a growl, hundreds of roots whipped with wrathful abandon at the daring brat.
Roots rained, crushing the ground around him in a symphony of flying motes. But Adam merely extended his palms, smirking as mana hummed.
"You can't match its raw strength!" Desmond's voice cracked, and Adam sneered.
Tens of millions of supple sky-blue threads burst from his palms, weaving themselves in a heartbeat. Each addition made the spell larger, more defined, and more rigid until it formed spiderweb patterns that overlapped to the point they looked like a wall of enchanted metal.
Roots crashed on the threads with enough strength to slice several inches deep into a thick trunk. Yet, they resisted the beast's fury, and whenever damage threatened to loosen the thread, he wove new ones. To him, the beast was no different from an angry neighbor knocking on his door. After all, it wasn't the first archmage beast he battled, and he had sipped so much poison during training that he was confident he could resist even toxins that didn't exist.
Still, he rolled his eyes under the avalanche of strikes. "Are you planning to attack, or are you waiting for a written request?" The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩·𝔣𝔦𝔯𝔢·𝔫𝔢𝔱
Torn away from his fear, Desmond clenched his fists and nodded. That was the strategy he had proposed—Adam in melee, him bombarding. The thought that Adam didn't even need his help flashed in his mind as he hurled a hail of lightning javelins.
Each thundered with lightning rage as they dropped on the roots. They exploded in purple blasts that set thick bark on roaring fire that took a dark shade upon touching the venom dripping from its mouth.
The beast shrieked, searing arcs spreading onto its wooden form. Its eyes shot toward Desmond, narrowed in hate. The enhanced speed gave the javelin barely enough penetration to pierce its bark, but the problem was its element. Lightning was far worse than fire against sylvan creatures, a weakness it shared despite its strength.
Without warning, the tentacles that had been slamming Adam's shield tore into the ground. But this was no choice of target—it would kill them both at once.
Simultaneously, it snapped its abysmal maw down. Rows of triangular, sword-sized fangs filled Adam's vision, and his eyes rolled from the stench alone. He thrust his palm behind, forming another shield, just as they snapped shut like a bear trap, the sound like grinding metal when they collided with his threads.
Sparks flew, acid and venom dripped. The shields that had endured the roots' battering didn't flinch, yet steam rose from their darkening surfaces. But worse was the impact. It sent a crushing tremor through Adam's arms. His muscles instantly burned, fibers snapping, bones groaning under colossal pressure.
He let out a visceral growl as venom corrupted his shields. "I can't hold. End it!"
Breath labored, Desmond began to weave a javelin half the size of the beast. However, the ground cracked around him. He barely had time to throw himself aside, spell stammering, before he felt the sharp whistle of the root that had been digging underground.
His spell dissolved into bright arcs, and he screamed in horror as he dodged more roots. "I can't! Escape!"
"Escape? Really? With its fangs surrounding me? Where—inside its mouth?" Adam rolled his eyes, but forced a cheerful tone. "You can do it, Desmond. Trust yourself."
AN: Yes, Adam has 100 ways to kill the beast (sear its inside, crush it under its own weight with gravity, poison it with more potent poison for the irony). It's just not his goal right now.