Marcus felt a chill through his soul as he looked down at the doomsday worm and prepared to assault it with everything he had
Up to this point he had only been contributing a small amount of support where he could, but now his actions were going to be necessary to turn the tide of the battle.
‘As long as it keeps that barrier up, none of our attacks are going to have an effect. It will just be able to go around wherever it wants and kill everything in its wake. I expect that it could probably turn the entire continent into a wasteland within a year if we cannot stop it.’
Clenching his fists, Marcus was feeling quite nervous about what he had to do next.
He had volunteered to do it and felt confident when he did so, but now that the weight of the entire continent was on his back, he was feeling a bit of pressure.
‘I just have to do everything I can and hope it is enough.’
With his resolve focused, he descended from high up in the sky where the others were waiting and praying for his success so that they could finally put down this threat.
Floating past its barrier as it was not able to keep him out, Marcus made his way right up to the eye and prepared to unleash his all against it..
‘Sorry Mraz. I am going to need my full power here.’
Reaching out to the part of his soul he had left with Mrazivý, Marcus felt the ring that was adorned on her finger and willed it back to himself.
He truly did not want to do this since this was her engagement ring and a symbol that he had entrusted his literal soul to her.
Unfortunately, right now he needed to prioritize power over everything else. Millions of lives were on the line here, and he was the only one who could do this job right now, so he was going to go all out.
‘Let me see how tough it is.’
Holding out his own scythe and the one that Jaela had lent him, Marcus began channeling an immense amount of mana into both of them.
Then once he had reached his normal limits, he activated his supreme skill and pushed even further beyond, coating both scythes with his power.
Yet, Jaela’s scythe actually rejected the darkness coming off of him, as her weapon had been imbued with the power of nature. Though in contrast it was more than happy to take in the complementary element of light.
‘I guess I should have expected this from someone else’s weapon. Still, it is incredibly powerful and stronger than my own scythe even without being able to take my full power.’
With both weapons now ready Marcus prepared to unleash a full powered attack, that was further brought up by a number of buff spells that had been cast on him.
Both Aria and Jaela had cast spells to increase his power and he was now brimming with more strength than he ever had before even though he had not activated some of his other unique skills yet.
However, these two high tier spells were putting a bit of strain on him as they were increasing his power well beyond what he could do on his own.
‘Eclipse Reaper, Vorpal Fang.’
Using his recently acquired attack skill with Jaela’s scythe, and his eclipse reaper attack on his own, Marcus charged forward while still ethereal.
Then right before he reached the eye, he became tangible again and lashed out with everything he had.
He had hoped to easily slice the trough the eye as it seemed unprotected, but as his attacks were about to hit, another barrier formed around the eye.
In an instant his two powerful attacks were brought to a halt as they scrapped across this barrier.
However, unlike the one that was making it in order to completely protected from outside attacks, this one was much weaker.
Marcus’ attacks soon began to crack the barrier around the eye as it could not put up as strong of a barrier without compromising the one it was generating around its main body.
Alas, even though Marcus did a bit of damage, his attacks ultimately ran out of power before they were able to do more than put the smallest cracks on the surface of this barrier. And to make matters worse it only took a couple of seconds before thousands of tendrils came out from all around him.
Clicking his tongue in anger at his failed attack, Marcus went back into his ghost form right before the tendrils ripped him to shreds and absorbed him.
His first attack not having been successful he was left in a bit of a bind.
Certainly, the had dealt a bit of damage to the barrier around the eye but it as not close enough to breaking through.
And to make matters worse a contingent of tendrils had now surrounded the eye, making it so that if he reappeared to attack it again, they would be in his way.
‘If I stay in my ghost form, I will only be able to use magic and none of my spells are strong enough on their own. Maybe if I could use my eclipse railgun at full power it might break through, but I would be attacked before I could pull it off.’
Racking his brain on what to do next Marcus felt that he was close, but he would need to be moving fast and hitting very hard to break through the barrier around the eye.
He wasn’t sure he could get through even if he used his soul burst unique skill coupled with soul devour, and before he committed to using either of those skills he needed to have a thorough attack plan thought out.
Once he had activated soul burst, he would be putting himself on a timer, and once it was over he would be practically useless for at least a week.
Before making any other moves he returned to the others and told them about his failure.
“Wait I thought you could pass through the barrier. Why not just push yourself inside it and then blow it up?” Ardea said
A number of the others looked at Marcus and nodded their heads wondering why he had not tried something so obvious.
But he just shook his head and said, “I can not just stick my hand into another living being if it is a lot stronger than me. Even if it is not aware of me, once I do that I am also interacting with its soul, and with a being as strong as this I would lose in an instant. Certainly, it would not kill me and maybe I would take a bit of damage, but I would be repulsed before being able to do anything. Also, if I tried it with a weapon, I can tell you all that it is not a pretty sight. I tried it before, but suddenly solidifying matter inside of something else causes a weird reaction where the foreign object is shunted from the space and normally comes out in pieces.”
Hearing Marcus’ explanation on reactions that occurred between ethereal and tangible entities interacting, they gave up on trying to exploit something they did not fully understand.
Of course, if Marcus’ soul was stronger than the Dread Burrowers, he would be fine passing through it, but since there was definitely and insurmountable difference, he would simply be repulsed. Just as what happened to him long ago when he first tried to possess the scaled bear in the Great Gome Woods.