'I warned you!' The thought roared in his mind as his fingers extended toward one of the monster's 4 wings. 'You won't escape from me!'
The crack when his fingers found their target was brutal. Elio's grip closed like a steel trap on the Artromus's shattered wing, and this time, nothing in heaven or earth would make him let go.
The time to pay had come.
Elio's other hand closed on the Artromus's destroyed wing and hell broke loose. Ember's flames, empowered by the fusion and emblems, enveloped the monster in a deadly embrace.
Artromus: 1,609 resistance points.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" The Artromus's roar mixed incredulity and agony.
How could a human have reached him at this speed? The fury in its voice transformed into a howl of pain as the flames devoured more of its being.
Artromus: 1,219 resistance points.
The air filled with wind blades as the Artromus desperately counterattacked.
The attacks hit Elio like furious whips, but he didn't even blink. His grip remained implacable, the flames burning with more intensity.
Artromus: 829 resistance points.
The monster's mutilated body twisted violently, its attacks increasingly frantic. Without its legs to push it, without the ability to use superior strength to physically separate like last time, the Artromus found itself truly trapped.
Artromus: 439 resistance points.
But then... something changed. The Artromus's shattered body began to regenerate at an impossible speed, a supernatural glow emanating from its form.
Elio's eyes dilated with recognition and terror. That line he had seen in the Artromus's statistics, that ability he had feared seeing manifest...
'NO!'
With a desperate roar, Elio channeled every ounce of strength he had left. The flames roared with renewed fury, devouring the monster's resistance.
Artromus: 49 resistance points.
The 2 cores in the Artromus's torso burst under the relentless assault, but the glow emanating from its body intensified until becoming blinding.
The force that followed the transformation was enough to break Elio's iron grip.
The monster freed itself, but something had changed.
Something terrible was about to begin.
♢♢♢♢
The metamorphosis tore the air around the Artromus, its body reconstructing itself in impossible ways.
But Elio's efforts hadn't been in vain...
The damage had been too severe; where a perfect evolved form should have emerged...
The transformation was imperfect, incomplete.
Malformed limbs and grotesque asymmetries evidenced the price of activating this ability so close to death.
The transformation's cost was astronomical: ninety percent of its vast sea of mana, consumed in an instant. In exchange, its statistics multiplied exponentially.
But despite being multiplied by 10...
Its resistance, which under normal conditions
would have reached 100,000 points...
Aranto Metis Soldier of Wind (Wind Artromus)
Skills:
Frenzy (Active 4.8/5 min)
Metamorphosis (Active 5/5 min)
Wind Element Magic
Mana: 72/1000
Resistance: 490/100,000
But in this battle of superhuman speed, "close" was still a mortal abyss.
Both pairs of eyes glowed with impossible intensity.
For the first time, blood also stained the monster's face as it forced its perception beyond what its race considered possible.
'For my queen,' thought Aranto, the pain in its eyes and head was new and disconcerting.
Yet...
'For my race. This threat must be eliminated.'
Elio pushed his own perception to limits he didn't even know existed. The pain was total, absolute. Not only did his muscles scream in agony; his brain felt like being pierced by a thousand burning needles.
'For Micah,' each thought was a battle against pain. 'Just... one more moment.'
But at these speeds, a moment was an eternity where everything could change.
Aranto's deformed arm cut through the air toward Elio's neck.
Superhuman perception allowed him to see the attack, but his body barely responded.
With a supreme effort, Elio interposed his own arm.
The sound of torn flesh and broken bones resonated in the air.
Aranto's malformed arm hadn't found perfect control, but the damage was done: Elio had sacrificed a limb to keep his head in place.
The new position left them at a critical point. But Elio had made a mistake; in his insistence to take (literally) Aranto's head, he had left himself exposed to another attack.
Unlike human heads, Artromus heads are also big weapons.
Aranto's monstrous mouth, now closer than ever to Elio's head, could end everything with a single movement.
Its strength of 80 and attack of 200 would do the job in an instant.
Elio, with only one functional arm, felt his grip weakening. Half his strength had gone with his shattered arm.
There was no way to dodge what was coming.
Aranto lunged forward, its jaws open for the final blow.
The winged salamander pulsed in Elio's consciousness.
Its next move ready.
One last action.
He could set the monster aflame again, guaranteeing both their deaths in a burning embrace.
Or he could save its summoner, pushing him away from danger... but freeing the monster from his grip.
Time froze while Elio faced the most important decision of his life.
Or it would have been so, but...
There was no doubt. No hesitation.
There would be no more moments of indecision in his life.
In that infinitesimal instant between life and death, between vengeance and survival, Elio chose...
Elio had chosen from the beginning...
He chose to release the monster and throw a fireball at Aranto's head with his remaining arm.
The largest and closest target, even with its incredible speed, it couldn't dodge it.
The monster's roar merged with his own as the flames enveloped Aranto.
.net
But before dying...
The monster's jaws closed over Elio's head in a spasm of agony while the fire devoured the last vestiges of its resistance.
There would be no escape this time. No second chance. No more regrets.
Micah had to be avenged, here and now, no matter the cost.