Russ leaps out of Ethan's shadow and grows, growling at the ground. Poison drips from his fangs and claws.

Ethan summons a fireball in his hand and holds it high, reducing every shadow in the room.

A crack, like wood splintering, echoes as the hut shudders. Claws pierce the building's sides, long like a man's forearm. The roof breaks and folds under the strength of the beast, revealing a grey behemoth. Long pairs of arms and legs extend from an elongated torso segmented by too many abdominals. Like a hollow, its face bears no feature, only folds of skin. But all along its flesh lie countless maws and pairs of eyes, each unique as if it stole them from the Hollows.

Jarek and Liska collapse to the ground before Ethan feels the soul of the beast crushing his. It sees him as, wants him to be a powerless prey that would collapse from fear.

Ethan summons Stormshard and turns his debilitating hex onto the beast. It digs into it but fails to sap its strength; instead, it feeds him dark Ether as it assimilates the curse.

Azriah smirks at the sight and hurls her halberds at the beast. It slashes its torso, drawing black, goo-like blood. She spins with the weight of her weapon and follows up with slashes at its legs and arms, cutting deep gashes. Her moves end with a kick to the monster's chest that sends it crashing into the sloped wall.

Ethan triggers Weapon Aura and unleashes a torrent of electric blades at the beast, pinning it with each impact. When he stops, the monster slides off the wall in wet chunks that come to a stop on the wooden terrace. For good measure, Ethan extends his left hand and swallows the remains in a torrent of flames.

"I think it's dead," Azriah comments as Ethan's spell ends.

The scorched chunks shiver and melt into black tar. Tendrils of flesh shoot out of it, melting into each other to reform a growing mass of screeching maws. It screams in the air and into Ethan's soul.

Ethan unleashes another inferno, drowning the screeches in the roars of flames. The shadow of the mass withers, returning to the form of a tar puddle before expanding, growing despite the fire. He cuts the flow and switches to arcs of lightning, but the monster keeps growing.

Grey, elongated limbs of stone-like skin shoot out of the mass, clawing at the ground. They shimmer with translucent slime that deflects most of Ethan's spell. It drags itself towards them, swatting at the air with its claws.

Azriah lunges at the reforming beast, swinging at its limbs. The blade of her halberd leaves only shallow cuts. She draws outside Ether and raises her strength as her second hit lands, cutting through the limb. It falls and breaks down into screeching goo.

Ethan pushes Strengthening to its soft limit and imitates her, cutting the remaining limbs. It returns the beast to the state of a puddle. He extends his hand and summons a shield around the screaming mass before shrinking it.

The mass drops into the ground, into Ethan's shadow.

Russ growls at the ground, snapping his gaze between everyone's shadow.

"Any idea on how to kill this thing?" Azriah asks.

Ethan unsummons Stormshard and brings out Gravecall. The war scythe still feels strange to use, but it has proven effective at consuming its victims.

A scream echoes from the main camp. They turn to see the beast reappearing in between houses, fully regenerated. It looks even bigger and sprouted an additional pair of arms ending in long, serrated claws.

Azriah bursts through the path leading back to town. Her speed and weight shatter the wooden planks she touches, spreading splinters in her path.

Screams fill the air as those far enough to not succumb to its soul flee in desperation.

Ethan exchanges his Debilitating Hex for Galewalker and flies the distance in a single jump. He extends his left hand as he passes over the beast and unleashes piercing fireballs at its back. The hissing projectiles propel their jets of fire through the monster, pulverizing its four shoulders.

Azriah grabs it with her first upward swing and throws the beast into the air, towards Ethan.

Ethan rotates his entire body to give Gravecall momentum. The bone blade digs into the monster's chest, and its flesh begins to rot away, falling in chunks. Ethan spins, cutting five gashes across the beast's torso that add to the decay. 'That's even more effective than on Kael's men.'

Azriah jumps onto a roof and at the monster, spinning her halberd. The strike crashes into the beast's spine, breaking its back and digging in between vertebrae. Before it can react, she vaults over her weapon and wrenches it out of her target into a downward, overhead slash. It severs the now-regenerated arms as it tries to shield itself and hurls it at the ground.

The wooden terrace breaks under the force of the impact, dropping the beast a level lower.

Her own attack propels Azriah to the stone ceiling. She lands upside down and shoots downward, holding the spear-tip of her halberd towards her target. The impact hurls them yet a level lower, the beast skewered by her weapon.

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Following them, Ethan notices that the wailing of the Hollows quieted. He re-exchanges Prescience for Predator's Sight and listens to the distant gathering of lost souls. He counts several missing voices.

Azriah swings her halberd, and the beast attached to it, over her shoulder and into the ground. A warping of the light, like hot air, rises around her form. Her next attack cuts through the beast and the ground to circle back over her and into the monster's head. It felt faster and stronger than a moment ago despite her already having maxed Strengthening.

The voice of another Hollow gets strangled, and it falls down to the ground.

'Great idea keeping them close by,' Ethan thinks. He joins Azriah in melee range, switching back to Prescience to avoid the beast's and her attacks. They fall into a strangely natural rhythm, covering each other's opening and landing a relentless barrage of attacks on the beast.

A tail whips out from inside the monster's chest to strike Azriah as she arms another attack. It throws her through a series of homes until she crashes into the stone slope. The haze that formed around her vanishes. But it is replaced by her muscles growing and heating up, making the wood around her smoke.

Ethan twists his body out of the beast's attacks, using each movement as inertia to slash with Gravecall. More and more of the monster sloughs off of it, leaving rotting edges that will fall in turn.

The spots Ethan struck sever from the main body and drop to decay on their own, replaced by new, writhing tendrils of flesh.

Ethan lands another blow at the monster's neck, but the wounded flesh falls off, sacrificed to keep the main body alive. He unsummons Gravecall and brings back Stormshard. If alterations are countered so easily, he can only rely on brute force to kill the beast enough times to make it permanent.

Azriah comes back at the monster in an explosive charge. She slams her halberd into the monster's chest, sending it backward, and follows, landing another hit before it even touches ground.

Regenerating, the beast grows crystal-like scales, evolving itself against her overwhelming strength. But in doing so, it abandons the slime coating it evolved to counter Ethan's spells.

'It has limits,' Ethan silently thanks. He keeps up with Aziah's advancing rampage and gathers lightning in his left hand. He grows it, charging the attack to exploit the opening before the monster has time to adapt.

Azriah's attacks grow less effective as the monster gains in armor and weight; until her last merely bounces off.

The beast straightens up and roars at Azriah, spreading its clawed arms, as if aware of its immunity.

Azriah smirks and disengages to the side, giving Ethan a clear shot.

An arc of blue lightning, fed with life force, thunders through the cavern. It strikes the roaring monster square in the chest, sending it flying past the terrace's edge. Its chest burns and disintegrates, leaving a gaping hole.

The beast lands on the ground floor – a garden surrounded by a split river and large buildings. It writhes as its mouths scream, clawing at its own reforming body to unearth cancerous appendices growing inside. They spread and join with writhing tendrils of flesh to form wings.

Azriah and Ethan move down from level to level to join the beast.

As the last of the Hollows' wails dies, the monster explodes with corrupted growths, forming dozens of armed appendices to strike with. The claws and spikes it made writhe around its form, threatening to shred anyone who would approach. Its crystal skin sheds back to layers of stone-like scales as it secretes its slime coating.

Ethan lets the thrill in, summoning war Ether into his heart the same moment he draws on his life force. He overloads Strengthening and exchanges Stormshard for the Purgatory Hands. Breaking the sound barrier, Ethan dashes into the tempest of blades, avoiding them with Prescience. His fists crash into the beast, breaking its hardened skin in spiderweb cracks.

Azriah places herself behind Ethan, striking its deformed limbs to give him more openings. The haze that vanished returns, giving her more speed and power, allowing for attacks that sever the limbs.

Ethan grabs both jaws of a maw splitting the monster's abdomen, and pulls on each side. Bone cracks herald the tearing of flesh as its body comes apart in halves.

The bottom half melts and reforms, turning into a rapidly decaying mass of lunging maws trying to bite Ethan. It climbs over his left gauntlet, sinking its teeth into the metal.

Ethan lets go of the upper half, lobbing it to Azriah. He gathers his Weapon Aura around his free fist and hurls it into the mass. The impact scatters the ravening mass, spreading it across the ground.

Azriah skewers the upper half with the spear-tip of her weapon and brings it headfirst into the ground. Before it can react, she spins, dragging it through the dirt before throwing it upward. She jumps to catch it back, spins on herself for a series of downward slashes and a final, crushing blow that returns the beast to the ground. The haze surrounding Azriah grows more vivid, taking a red hue as she lands.

The halved monster dives into the shadows covering the ground.

Ethan shoots a fireball that explodes right above him, making the shadows cower and forcing the beast to exit them in screeching agony.

The beast drags itself away, leaving behind chunks of its body. With a flap of its wings, it shoots upward towards the ceiling.

Ethan aims his hands at the monsters and abandons all his abilities to focus all of his Ether into his palms. He unleashes a barrage of hissing, blue fireballs at the monster, engulfing him in piercing beams of fire and wide-area blasts.

The rotting, smoking remains of the creature land around Ethan and Azriah in wet thuds. They remain as such, unable to regenerate further.

"Russ leveled up. Ether manipulation leveled up. Melee Weapon (Scythe) leveled up (x5)," the system announced.

"I've met some hard-to-kill monsters in this place, but this takes the crown," Azriah comments. She stares at Ethan as his arms slump to his sides, paralyzed by Strengthening's backlash. "How did you know when to go all out? If you were wrong and it continued to heal, you would have been defenseless."

"It was consuming the nearby Hollows one by one; I guessed its range was limited and waited for the last one to die," Ethan explains. He glances at her as the haze surrounding her dies down, going through its stages in reverse until it vanishes. "That wasn't listed in your abilities."

"It's called Combo; the longer I fight without interruption, the stronger I get," Azriah says. "And if that's so important to you, the other one is Fury."

"Sorry," Ethan says, casting off the last of the thrill as he regains control over his body.

Cheers rise from the terraces from where conscious survivors watched the fight.

Azriah sweeps the crowd with her gaze, slightly aghast. "Do you think we can omit the fact that technically we called it here?"

"I'll go talk to Jarek before he gives his version of the events," Ethan says. He vanishes into the shadows to move through the camp unhindered by the spectators.

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